John Pluenneke> Kaiser Permanente, the largest health care provider in California, has filed a lawsuit against a blogger in Berkeley, California demanding that she dismantle her blog, after it was discovered that she had posted confidential patient information for 140 of the health management company’s patients on the web.

Elisa Cooper, who calls herself “the Diva of Disgruntled” and worked as a web designer for Kaiser in 2003, says she posted the files to publicize lax security procedures. According to Cooper, Kaiser unwittingly posted the information, which includes patient medical records and test results, on a public area of a corporate site nearly two years ago. She argues her action was necessary to get the company to take the matter seriously.

Cooper’s blog = http://www.livejournal.com/users/corphq/

Cooper is getting support from some bloggers who agree with her decision and criticism from others who think she went too far in putting other people’s personal information at risk. The story was broken on Wednesday by the San Jose Mercury News. (subscription req.)

The Health Care Blog has had running coverage for the past few days, along with comments from Cooper on the case.

John Pluenneke is the Contributing Editor of FierceHealthCare, a free daily email briefing for healthcare administrators and executives.