This just seems like a power grab to empower federal level personal thugs for the executive branch.
Most of these departments have rules about how they use our data. ICE now gobbles it all up and can use it without rules by a department that operates with little regard and lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution.
The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it). Whatever rules we thought there were seem to be out the window because someone magically moved data or ICE got to do it or so on ...
I don't understand why ICE would need access to Medicaid data. You need to be a citizen or lawful permanent resident to access that program, not to mention all the other additional criteria. The idea of illegal immigrants somehow bypassing all the checks and balances successfully en masse feels a little silly to me.
A lot of states evidently give Medicaid to illegal aliens as well. ICE wants this data to track down those persons. I feel it's illegal and overreach, but Congress has turned into a rubber stamp for Trump and just sitting on their thumbs, albeit some have furrowed brows and "concerns". None of them do anything though. Congress should be the main power in Washington, not our new King in Orange.
No government agency should get access to any private data without the appropriate protocols in place. Even more so considering the many issues surrounding ICE and their actions already, this will not improve things. Let alone the moral problem of trying to deport people which have been used by American companies for cheap labour to build the nation they want and supposedly are. Now of course that is ignoring the ludicrous view that undocumented migrants are the key issue, as opposed to so many other home made issues in the US, such as unfair wealth disparity, and a lack of fundamental basic rights for citizens.
The amount of precedent being set here for big government and overreach is amazing. I'm not really surprised though that Conservatives and other small/limited governemnt people worked to enact this massive overreach of power.
> Tom Homan, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have made very clear that they intend on spending the billions in this bill. Tom Homan said this week that they want to arrest 7,000 people every day for the remainder of the administration
This sounded like a straight-forward HIPAA violation, but I checked. There's a carve out for LE.
You can see the bones of a stronger limit during drafting (as "required" by warrants), but then weakened to allow mere "administrative requests".
> Law Enforcement Purposes. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under the following six circumstances, and subject to specified conditions: (1) as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; (2) to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person; (3) in response to a law enforcement official's request for information about a victim or suspected victim of a crime; (4) to alert law enforcement of a person's death, if the covered entity suspects that criminal activity caused the death; (5) when a covered entity believes that protected health information is evidence of a crime that occurred on its premises; and (6) by a covered health care provider in a medical emergency not occurring on its premises, when necessary to inform law enforcement about the commission and nature of a crime, the location of the crime or crime victims, and the perpetrator of the crime.
That is the danger of central data collection. I know we like to pretend that federal departments are discrete units. At the end of the day the federal government owns the data. No subpoena needed if your boss already owns the data. You just have to ask nicely.
I personally think it's a first run for a secret police force, maybe coming as soon as next year. This will help them test the waters as well as set up facilities and training centers they can leverage later for a new stasi type force.
I attended Amazon Re:Invent a number of years ago and one of the keynote speakers was talking about providing medical information to law enforcement - the theory being that if they know you suffer from schizophrenia, for instance, the police would be informed of this and in theory less likely to murder you.
I found the whole idea very prone to abuse and posted about it on social media, and the whole thread flew into people fighting about Obamacare… but I still think I was right.
The older I get, the more I become a strong proponent of keeping data out of the hands of the people who can murder you without recourse.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 51.0 ms ] threadMost of these departments have rules about how they use our data. ICE now gobbles it all up and can use it without rules by a department that operates with little regard and lots of exceptions to typical protections for citizens afforded by the constitution.
The majority in SCOTUS does not seem to care (it’s ok as long as their guy does it). Whatever rules we thought there were seem to be out the window because someone magically moved data or ICE got to do it or so on ...
Just a quick check of the official website to try and get onto Medicaid in WA state shows that it requires a social security number and citizenship information: https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/us/en/health-coverage/get...
Right? /s
(peak covid was 3000 deaths per day)
This country is going to get really horrific, really really fast
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/gop-gives-ice-massive-budg...
> Tom Homan, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have made very clear that they intend on spending the billions in this bill. Tom Homan said this week that they want to arrest 7,000 people every day for the remainder of the administration
You can see the bones of a stronger limit during drafting (as "required" by warrants), but then weakened to allow mere "administrative requests".
> Law Enforcement Purposes. Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under the following six circumstances, and subject to specified conditions: (1) as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; (2) to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person; (3) in response to a law enforcement official's request for information about a victim or suspected victim of a crime; (4) to alert law enforcement of a person's death, if the covered entity suspects that criminal activity caused the death; (5) when a covered entity believes that protected health information is evidence of a crime that occurred on its premises; and (6) by a covered health care provider in a medical emergency not occurring on its premises, when necessary to inform law enforcement about the commission and nature of a crime, the location of the crime or crime victims, and the perpetrator of the crime.
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg...
https://archive.ph/a9KaW
You just know this goes beyond illegal immigrants. This is some Gestapo shit right there.
It doesn't any more.
I found the whole idea very prone to abuse and posted about it on social media, and the whole thread flew into people fighting about Obamacare… but I still think I was right.
The older I get, the more I become a strong proponent of keeping data out of the hands of the people who can murder you without recourse.