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Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In 2012, Canadian Ellen Richardson was hospitalized for clinical depression. This past Monday she tried to board a plane to New York for a $6,000 Caribbean cruise. DHS denied her entry, citing supposedly private medical records listing her hospitalization. From the story: '“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.'"
..literally hundreds of others crossed the border illegally. USA USA USA!
Give me your tired^whealthy, your poor^wrich/Your huddled masses^wvisa-workers yearning to breathe free^w"managed"
Only a few more words to go people; you can do it!
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Does the D in DHS stand for douchebag?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The US can deny anyone entry into their country for any reason or no reason.
While I think we all agree that flying like many activities is something of a privilege. But at the same time, who really thinks it's a good idea to let some preening, unaccountable bureaucrat decide whether or not you should be granted that privilege with no justification needed?
While the commenter goes on to note that US Customs and Border Protection should not have had access to that medical information (with the poster claiming that is the only "deeper issue" at stake), it's interesting how many issues this one incident bring up.
In addition, we have regulations that can block someone from flying on dubious medical grounds. And that US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to block people from merely flying through the US on their way to other foreign locations.
It's like someone knocked a whole crate of worms off the locking dock.
As far as I can tell, the only part we have of this story if from the woman herself, who is apparently delusional (at least, has had problems with that in the past). For all we know, they found out because she told them (they apparently didn't know about her suicide attempt; again, I'm going based on my understanding of the article).
It's the kind of situation where you want to hear all the evidence before passing judgement. We don't have it all here.
Although I don't really understand why they want to keep depressed people out, it's just a tourist visa, not even a long term thing.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That is absolutely amazing. (Not in any good way) TSA/ICE people literally have access to this stuff. It amazes me in an utterly horrifying way. That it's more international data sharing at this level should be cause for all manner of scrutiny and corrective action.
I'm sure Canadians and others are just about done with the US and what the government is up to.
USA, a country full of control freaks and paranoia.
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Although I don't really understand why they want to keep depressed people out, it's just a tourist visa, not even a long term thing.
Bruce Schneier calls it "the war on the unusual" - I like "the war on diginity" because it better encompasses the kafka-esque nature of the unthinking and unyielding bureaucracy that produces this sort of result.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If the book was published in 2009 and the exact event stated by DHS for denying entry occurred in 2012, how did the 2012 event get known by the DHS from a 2009 book?
@Whee
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
The thing with "treatments" in scare quotes is a pretty strong indication that you're not merely unaware of the state of the art in the field, but actively avoiding any risk of being contaminated by actual information about it. And I guess if you wanna be that way on your own dime, that's your business, but when you start telling other people they should avoid basic health care services because you're afraid of them, that's sorta harmful to other people.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Irrational fear is the new patriotism.
No, it is not new. Irrational fear has ALWAYS been the keystone to American "patriotism". Hell, just look at the whole McCarthyism thing.
The pharmacist still has to keep it private, even in a town of 10.
Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
While it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to find out that her physical disability (paraplegia) might have had some affect on her mental wellbeing over the years, is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
You wouldn't write the headline "Black man arrested for insider trading" would you?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
That's wishful thinking at its finest. I suppose you have never lived in a village.
That creature was no bull dyke.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of bull dykes, at all. I've no use for them, and they have no use for me. But, a bull dyke is a woman, after all, and human.
That creature you refer to, who was running DHS, is a full fledged fascist pig, with an agenda of her own. She has no love for the United States, or any segment of the country's demographics.
As little as might like bull dykes, I would have preferred that there actually WAS a militant lesbian bull running DHS.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
And having another medical professional (also under medical secrecy), particularly one that has fairly intimate knowledge of the patient's consumption of medicines, is a bad thing? And of course it makes a massive difference whether it says "depression" or "Prozac" on the script... Because no one knows what any medicines are used for treating. No where is perfect but Canada's medical system is far from the worst if I understand anything about it.
There actually is valid reason to assess people's mental capacity and mental state though. A lot of the centrists and right wingers are agreeing that maybe it would make sense to keep crazy people from acquiring weapons.
The problem is though, as you hint, that left wingers are going to define "crazy". Already we see children being taken into custody for the act of play acting in schools.
Bite a pop-tart into the shape of a gun, and school officials call in the cops. Imagine that. Point a finger and say "POW", and you're marked for life as a crazy person prone to violence.
I suppose that some liberal will read your post, and mine, and be begging for the opportunity to drag us onto an analyst's couch.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
irrational fear has been the keystone to all patriotism
nothing american about a human phenomenon
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is exactly why it's the only government in the world I'd trust to obey the law.
best troll ever?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
he's explaining a shitty reality, not condoning it
ever hear of the phrase "shooting the messenger"?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The point is that the NSA knows about everyones personal medical records. And they abuse that information.
All the recent mass murders in the U.S. have got the right wing blogosphere screaming for a crackdown on the mentally ill.
Should we point out to them that all these mentally ill people are loose on the streets and not getting proper treatment because these same right-wingers are insisting on social service cutbacks?
The state of the art in the field is medication. The drugs have changed over time, but drugs have been the first line of treatment for at least 40 years now. I have both experienced myself, and witnessed in others the indescribable suffering and agony that can occur due to drug side-effects, and those that appear due to withdrawal of the drugs after long-term use. Psychiatry would have you believe, I suppose, that the central nervous system is endlessly plastic, and can rapidly adapt and respond to medications being added and removed as one pleases. For the majority, perhaps this is true - but there is a sizable minority who find their mental health deteriorate the longer they are on the medications, and then discover (to their horror) that they cannot discontinue the drug without terrifying mental and physical symptoms, far worse than the original illness. If it should happen to you, psychiatry absolutely _will not_ have your back, or really anything to offer you, as even the drug manufacturers themselves do not know how the medications affect the brain long term.
One might argue that any treatment has risks, but after experiencing what I've experienced, I think people should understand what kind of risk they're really taking. For my part, I do not consider this kind of medication Russian roulette to be a "basic health care service."
Delusional? No, she was treated for clinical depression after a relationship ended. I guess you've never had a soul destroying break up that leaves you alone and utterly bereft of joy in your life. Be thankful for that because it fucking sucks.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Neither does the DHS, or have you ever seen a public anouncement of the DHS to refrain from violence during their next march?
Gosh, guys, what on earth could a person who is paralyzed from the waist down have to be depressed about?!
A minor nitpick from an external, non-American observer:
What McCarthy & co did was wrong and too much, but not necessarily irrational. Communism was a real threat to non-communist countries all over the world, and the U.S. was not the only nation to take extreme measures to defend themselves against it.
In hindsight we know that the treat probably wasn't as big as it was perceived back then, and that the "defense" did more harm than good in many cases, but at the time they did not know this. So: Maybe "misinformed" but not "irrational".
Yet it is far more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries.
The right set of laws? What happened to that one, oh, I forget its name... The Con-something or other, the one that's supposed to be the supreme law of the land, bar none? A law that violates the Constitution is not a law.
I think it's fair to say that the biggest threat to the world wasn't communism, it was the interplay of two superpowers struggling for dominance: everyone else is a target to them.
You were both a real threat to the rest of the world.
Land of the free my arse.
It is more overt in the U.S. than in other western countries.
Yet it is far more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries.
Clearly you've never heard of the Daily Mail.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
It is only through hindsight that we can say that a desire to ferret out communist subversives was "irrational". At this time during the cold war, considering that there actually WERE subversives and attempts to subvert the USA's government, a desire and hunting for such subversives was a very understandable and reasonable concern. Protecting itself and it's integrity is a proper role for government and there were valid concerns.
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
The DHS quite obviously have access to sweeping surveillance information on anyone who wants to enter the US. This was obvious before the Snowden/NSA leak. A couple of years before that leak there was a British man who made national news here for being denied entry to the US (and being interrogated for hours) because of a tweet he made not long before he boarded the aircraft (the tweet was of the nature "we're gonna go out and destroy the town tonight" which in British slang means we're going to get drunk and party, but the DHS took it literally as if he were planning to bomb Seattle). To link someone's Twitter username with an actual living person in such a short period of time and have it ready on a border agent's computer when the unfortunate person arrives means they must have had pretty wide and detailed surveillance already capable of making all the links necessary to link a living person with a pseudanonymous Twitter username.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
What made McCarthyism bad not the hunt for subversives per se, it was tossing out the constitution in the hunt for subversives.
Gee, now why does that sound so familiar?
It's deja vu all over again.
Those who fail to learn from history...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The DHS would never have let those religious nutjobs in.
Really, +4 Insightful? "Not necessarily irrational"?
Two small quotes:
1. -"... is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism".
2.- "The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. (...) During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment and/or destruction of their careers; some even suffered imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute".
You might want to rethink that "misinformed but not irrational" part, it was a witchhunt. It was, basically: If I do not like what you think, do, say, film, perform, or just who you are, I am going to destroy you, your family, your career and everything you hold dear.
Those quotes come from the first two paragraphs from Wikipedia. Go, read the article. Done? Now go read some of essays and the extensive literature available on the subject, now that you are at it. And by you, I mean the author AND the people that moded that post.
I don't think you have a clear understanding of mental illness.
It's like physical illness, but applied to the brain and mental functions. People get better. People get worse. Some people are very very ill, many are just a bit ill. 1 in 4 people will have a mental health issue at some point in their life.
By "is delusional" you mean "was delusional". This is now managed with drugs, just like someone who lost their leg has their "balance issues" managed with a false limb. I don't think anyone would condone blocking entry to a country because that person had lost a leg in the past.
The decision was appalling, and the fact that it is clear that Canada is giving up private medical records to US authorities is disgusting.
I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object. I also have never understood their obsession with "handgun" deaths, or "gun" deaths. What makes a "handgun" death any more horrible than any other type of murder???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Nice apologia, but it's bullshit.
When people are denied entry on a capricious basis, everyone suffers. Though they don't know it, even the border patrol fuckwads suffer. And then the country produces more fuckwards, who apply for border patrol jobs because they sense an opportunity to bully people. Then they invent a bunch of bullshit rationalizations for being assholes.
I tell everyone I speak to on the subject not to visit the USA. You'd have to be an asshole to give us your money. We're just going to use it to fuck you and everyone else over.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No. It's the law.
McCarthyism: 1950-1956
War on Terror: 2001-
Your rant is fifty years off.
I'm not justifying anything or claiming that any government was right. I just said that in the political context of the early 1950:s, fear of communism was not considered irrational.
Today many people seem to have forgotten that before the 1970s, many countries supported the U.S. anti-communist agenda. Many of the same countries are now more or less opposed to the current U.S. foreign policy.
So, aim that flamer at someone who actually disagrees with you, OK?
Geeks have a hard time entering human mode, eh?
I thought the same thing when I read about some of the new laws, both passed and proposed among the states, which require a psychologist to report any patient who hints at rampage fantasies or violent thoughts or some such. Awesome, now people who need help will never confide in their psychologists. And naive innocent people who do so will be marked for life as 'violent tendencies'. Really, who hasn't had the occasional violent fantasy?
It is a real peeve of mine how laws get passed with absolutely zero thought given to what the consequences will be. People change their behavior, but so many of these dumb bills just assume that they won't.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Where is "over here"? If you're talking about the UK then yes it absolutely does.
Shit like the porn filters David Cameron is so proud of are the direct result of a Daily Mail campaign.
Fear of guns is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to stick up, injure, or kill multiple people with a gun - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 people with a gun, but assaulting 5 people with a knife is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without guns, but guns amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning guns outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Perhaps you should consider that you possibly don't understand what "anti-gun folk" fear about handguns. They don't fear an interlocking series of components that produces a chemical reaction that accelerates an emitted object or objects. They fear the human abuse of such an item.
I don't think I've ever heard an anti-gun protester complain about a marine carrying a sidearm in uniform, but lots of them seem to complain about how amazingly trivial it is to obtain one even if you're a diagnosed schizophrenic felon (just head to your nearest gun show.)
Death by handgun isn't any more horrible than death by any other method (hell, you could argue that it is more humane if the shooter knows what they're doing - I'd rather die by gunshot to the head than burn to death) - but I have never heard anyone complain that dying by handgun is worse than anything else.
What I have heard people complain about is that handguns are more dangerous than other 'murder weapons' for the same reason that assault rifles are more dangerous than handguns, that hand grenades are more dangerous than assault weapons, that grenade launchers are more dangerous than hand grenades, and a 20mm automatic cannon is more dangerous than a grenade launcher. Each one makes it easier to kill more people than the next.
I assure you that carrying two M9s will allow you to kill far more people than carrying two knives.
So, perhaps you're a bit mistaken about why people don't like handguns. Personally, I enjoy handgun shooting as a sport, but don't carry one - I use a Mark 23 (a little big to carry anyhow.)
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"The major difference is that you will live in abject horror for a little while longer, and then slowly bleed to death, when confronted by a madman with a knife."
That's time in which an ambulance can reach you and save you.
As an aside, why the hyperbole "abject horror", "madman", do you not ever die in "abject horror" when shot? do madmen only ever use knives?
"If someone intent on harming you with a knife is 21 feet away from you, and you have a holstered gun, you stand a pretty good chance of being dead."
You can dodge a knife easier than you can dodge a bullet, you can disarm someone with a knife charging you easier than you can disarm someone you can't even reach with a gun, you can run from someone with a knife easier than someone with a gun. All these factors make a drastic difference.
"I think you may be overestimating your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you."
Whatever the ability is, it's higher than the chance of stopping or dodging a bullet which is pretty much exactly zero.
I don't pretend that surviving a knife attack is easy, but it's still orders of magnitude easier than surviving being shot at
Pretending you're as likely to die when faced with a knife attack as opposed to a gun attack is all kinds of retarded. The very fact a gun is a ranged weapon alone drastically alters the balance, the very fact they can attack you without you physically being able to reach them back changes everything, as does the fact that their tool of harm - the bullet travels at a speed you simply can't react to compared to a knife which can only move at the same speed you too can respond - that of human reflex.
If guns didn't offer a massive advantage in terms of killing or causing harm then we'd all be walking round with broadswords and polearms because guns would've been pointless in the first place. Their very existence is based on the fact they're a far more effective and efficient method of killing whilst avoiding being killed, that's a cold hard unavoidable fact even if it is inconvenient to those paranoid enough to feel they can't possibly live their life without a firearm.
Americans are not patriotic. Patriotic people wouldn't let their country slide to tyranny, nor let its leaders shit all over its laws, nor keep voting for people who can't even pass a damn budget without turning it into a game of "chicken".
While that's entirely possible, the fact is that they aren't at the top. It's American's turn to show what you're made of and whether you can handle real power. This far, the answers seem to be "pyrite" and "no". And so the USA fades to history, the same as every previous empire who failed the test. But at least the world has calmed down enough that it's unlikely anyone will be ransacking Washington.
Yours isn't, sadly.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Pharmacists are supposed to be more than pill counters. They're highly educated drug experts, far more so than physicians. The pharmacist is supposed to check what the physician prescribed, make sure it's correct, a reasonable dosage, and doesn't conflict with anything else the patient may have or be taking. It's very useful for the pharmacist to know the diagnosis, in order to do his job.
The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
You could shoot back.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
Please tell all these dead children how to defend against knives. Because you're thinking of the children, right?
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Because the knife wielding criminals always announce themselves, right?
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
Or you could be properly trained on how to use your gun to defend yourself. Are you trained in martial arts? You might accidentally punch a baby in the face with those unregistered deadly weapons you call hands.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Didn't you just tell me how I can't defend myself from someone with a gun? I have such an irrational fear of being attacked with a gun that I've resorted to getting my own gun to try and even the odds. Yes, I have guns. No, I don't carry. Why? Because I live in a rural area and the crime rate diminishes the further away I get from the "gun-free zone" urban areas. The only thing I'm worried about is someone breaking in to rob the house. And even in that case, I hope that the sound of me racking the 12 gauge will be enough to scare them off because if I shoot them, NY will probably throw me in jail.
Fear of cars is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a car can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a banana you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why car murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a car yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to collide back then there's a greater chance that stray car parts will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to run over, injure, or kill multiple pedestrians with a car - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 pedestrians with a car, but assaulting 5 pedestrians with a banana is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without cars, but cars amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning cars outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti car folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro car folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their car or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
And the US intentional homicide rate, from all causes, from the equivalent Wikipedia page, is 4.7 per 100,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
So most of your 'firearm related death rate' are suicides, justifiable homicide, or accidents.
So you're using bogus statistics to support an anti-gun agenda. Hey, what a shock. Never seen that before.
BTW, Mexico's intentional homicide rate is 23.7. Clearly they don't need guns to murder people.