Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems

RickRussellTX writes "A panel of Bush administration officials, including several bureau chiefs, concludes that confusing privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""

Comments

prevent?

[joe 155]

"has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""

You can't prevent this sort of thing. It really is impossible. Unless, that is, you want to start treating people who haven't committed a crime but seem a bit "different" as criminally insane. But you'd have to lock them up forever, because if you steal someones life and then let them go... well, he'd be more pissed off than ever before - if he even could do something like these shootings you should bet your arse this would trigger it off.

I suspect that the response will be what we can usually expect from pretty much any government though, "this generates bad headlines, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" generates good headlines regardless of the consequences, therefore we should do the whole think of the children thing to an even greater degree". And if they do remove a large section of privacy from people - especially if they go as far as to interfere with doctor/patient privacy - then you can expect more shootings as people who could have been stopped with help and support are forced back upon themselves.

diagnosis

[symes]

Cho had barn-door schizophrenia, from what I've read no one would doubt be had some pretty serious mental health issues. However, there will always be schizophrenics in the community and a great number will do nothing more serious than a bit of mumbling, etc.. Spotting the very few who will become violent (having had little of no prior history, a very rare breed) and pose risk to others is enormously difficult and takes a great deal of experience. Coupled with the problems of getting it wrong, basically curtailing someones future, stigmatizing them indefinitely, etc., when they haven't actually committed a crime I can understand why clinicians are reluctant to act without very definite evidence this person will harm others. So with Cho, I can understand why no one did anything...

The issue of prohibiting access to firearms is moot - if he hadn't had access to a gun he probably would have used a sword, or a knife, or burned a few buildings down, etc.. The point is, he was dangerous and the only reasonable form of prevention would have been to remove him from society - but the risk of false positives probably means all the hand wringing in the world will not stop another Cho.

Re:diagnosis

[Cadallin]

The Virginia Tech shooting may have been unpreventable, but that doesn't mean that our mental health system in the USA isn't shit. There were definitely signs that Cho was dangerously unstable, with the potential for violent behavior. Another thing I think is amazing is how often schizophrenia goes undiagnosed, at least in my area. I have a personal friend who works in the Public Defender's Office, he has very little psychological training, a Psych minor as an undergrad, but he regularly encounters clients who have a simple diagnosis of Depression, that just interviewing them, he can tell something much more serious is wrong with them (apparently, a client who has difficulty focusing on an interview because he's "talking to the voices" is a very good sign, imagine! These are clients that have seen multiple counselors, and none of them noticed anything!). He then requests a Psych eval from a Clinical Psychiatrist, he has a very good success rate at guessing what comes up in diagnoses.

It is frightening to me that these people just slip through the cracks, with some of them caught by somebody not even in the field. It angers me because I think society has an obligation to take better care of these people, if only for the safety of society at large.

Privacy law problems??

[olden]

Agreed. Blaming, even partially, "privacy laws" for this massacre is just plain dishonest.
(if anything, the problem with privacy laws is that they're facing extinction)

Snippets from a news report written shortly after the tragedy:
"A medical examination found that (...) [Cho's] insight and judgment are normal"
"Although Cho's writings were disturbing, mental health professionals say the student's behavior didn't reach the threshold that would have demanded more aggressive intervention."
"You can't do anything unless there's imminent risk that's somewhat foreseeable to take away someone's civil rights"
(source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/student.counselin g/ )

Seems clear to me that no sharing of medical information with law enforcement would have helped here.

Re:Is it just me

[clickclickdrone]

It depends how paranoid you like to be. If you take the long term view there is an argument that people in power want to keep that power and if it needs to be done in stages ie. voted out this time, back in next time, so be it. A scared population is a compliant one and if there's no bogyman, it's a good idea to invent one. You'd really need to see the program as it's quite a complex series of steps to get to where we are now.