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DEA Wants Access To Medical Records Without Warrant (thedailybeast.com)
mi writes from a report via The Daily Beast: Unlike in cases of commercially-held data, where the Third Party doctrine allows police warrantless access, prescription drug monitoring databases are maintained by state-governments. The difference is lost to the Obama Administration, which argues that "since the records have already been submitted to a third party (a state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) that patients no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy." The DEA has claimed for years that under federal law it has the authority to access the states' prescription drug databases using only an "administrative subpoena." These are unilaterally issued orders that do not require a showing of probable cause before a court, like what's required to obtain a warrant. Some states, like Oregon, fight it; some, like Wisconsin, do not. "The federal government is eager to see all these databases linked," reports The Daily Beast. "The Department of Justice has developed a software platform to facilitate sharing among all state PDMPs. So far 32 states already share their PDMP data through a National Association of Boards of Pharmacy program. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), which passed Congress in March, calls for expanding sharing of PDMP data."
... then FBI, then DEA ...
The system rots, from within
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This why I won't deal with type of "western" doctor. I'll stuck with traditional Asian and herbal medicine.
It's safer, just as good and alot less expensive. The DEA can ***********GO FUCK THEMSELVES*************
As a Obama supporter (twice), can I just say:
Dude... Obama... stop. The tin foil hat brigade is giving me that knowing nod of "see? We fucking told you", and I have no reasonable retort. The Constitution was supposed to be your wheelhouse.
Fuck them forever. Fuck them from day one. Fuck anyone who works for them. Fuck anyone who supports them. Fuck any country that employs them. Lastly...FUCK THE DEA
What is with all these requests for data without a warrant? If they have a legitimate request for access, it will be very easy for them to get a warrant. The only reason I can think of to want warrantless access is to circumvent constitutional protections.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
... try not be so arrogant
Rhino Horns is not an essential ingredient in the Chinese medicine
The effect of rhino horns is equivalent to that of Tylenol
Does this mean we, as the general public, can request the prescription drug database results for lawmakers in states like Wisconsin?
since the records have already been submitted to a third party (a state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program) that patients no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy.
I don't buy into this bullshit normally, since people generally leave their information with third parties because they trust the third party will keep it in confidence. This case has the added force of law behind it -- HIPAA was written specifically to ensure that medical records are not passed around without the patient's consent.
...or so, any normal person would believe.
Unfortunately, it appears in this case, the DEA is correct. There is a specific exemption in HIPAA for administrative requests:
When does the Privacy Rule allow covered entities to disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials?
To respond to an administrative request, such as an administrative subpoena or investigative demand or other written request from a law enforcement official. Because an administrative request may be made without judicial involvement, the Rule requires all administrative requests to include or be accompanied by a written statement that the information requested is relevant and material, specific and limited in scope, and de-identified information cannot be used (45 CFR 164.512(f)(1)(ii)(C)).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
>"The difference is lost to the Obama Administration, which argues that "since the records have already been submitted to a third party."
Of course... that pesky Constitution just gets in the way so much. Due process is overrated and the Fed should be able to do whatever they want, I mean, anything can be "interstate commerce", right? That the records are held by the States shouldn't matter, since the interpretation of the Constitution is now that the Federal Government has any rights DENIED to the States, not the other way around.
Think this is just a Democrat problem? Think again. It seems all politicians- from the President, through Congress and elsewhere think the government, especially the Fed, should grow and grow, spend and spend, make law after law taking away more and more rights from Citizens. What is the next "war"? We haven't yet "won" of the "war on drugs" which stripped countless rights... followed by the unwinnable "war on piracy", and then the "war on terror", in which everyone is a terrorist and if you are a good Patriot, you should surrender all your rights in the name of "patriotism". If you have nothing to hide...
It seems we continue to allow the evolution of the "Federal Fascist Socialist State of America" everyone loses. Where does it end?
OK, rant over... gotta go mow the stupid lawn now. Unless there is some Federal law against that I don't know about.
FTFA: The Obama administration disagrees, and argues that since the records have already been submitted to a third party (Oregon’s PDMP) that patients no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy.
How do *I* lose my rights if a second party turns over info to a third party?
Now I see why the Obama administration has had such a hardon for electronic medical records.
Silly European here, but why does this database exist in the first place ? What business is it of the states what medicines you use. ?
Isn't that something between you, your doctor and possibly the insurance company ?
Massive collection of data by government is a necessary part of implementing financial regulation, health care regulation, environmental regulations, gun control, employment regulation, public education, and civil rights legislation. That is, federal and state governments cannot accomplish their goals of detecting fraud and inefficiencies, without detailed data on the health, drugs, purchases, sales, salaries, and education of every American. And, of course, the IRS, DEA, and other agencies are going to get access to it: it's their job to find fraud and abuse in the system. What rubs people the wrong way about it is that they are now starting to realize that once that data has been collected and the three letter agencies get access to it, they themselves are potential suspects and may be identified for idiosyncratic reasons by some data mining algorithm. That's in addition to the other abuses that such data collection engenders: political blackmail, government corruption, and massive leaks of personal information.
The combination of the war on drugs, anti-terrorism legislation, the ACA and the massive increase of financial services regulations in recent years have fundamentally changed the US from a country where you were left alone unless you did something wrong, to a country where every aspect of your life is recorded and scrutinized by state and federal agencies. I think we need to reverse that.
For f* sake, my doctors can't even get my medical records. Went to the emergency room, told them I just had a cat scan in the same hospital a few weeks ago of the problem area and they could use that for comparison. "Was it an out-patient procedure?", they asked. "Yes". "Then we can't use that." Another time I went to hospital, told them I had been to another hospital for the same thing but out of state, again oh well, they can't use those. Hell, every time I go to the doctor they ask for my height. That doesn't change very much. But they ask it every single freaking time. What's the point of all these records? We make an endless stream of them and never use them again.... oh, except when a foreign dignitary needs an organ, then they read them alright.
:T:R:A:N:S:
http://www.appriss.com/health-information.html
They have gone to every state and made them a money saving offer they can't refuse. "We can take care of this cheaper than you can." This has state agencies falling over themselves to participate.
A review of their other offerings is creepy...
If for no other reason than privacy, this is why a cashless society is totally undesirable if you value privacy. Literally every transaction you do is visible by or through a third party to the transaction. Therefore the third party doctrine would apply to your entire economic life.
And you know that if we get there, no one in Congress is going to propose, let alone get passed, a bill that formally abolishes that doctrine and requires a warrant for every data request.
The government can't (or should not) pass a law that requires collection of data, then claim that people have no expectation of privacy in that data.
What if the government passed a law requiring you to upload the contents of your computer to a massive database, then decided that it didn't need a warrant to access that same data?
If the Supreme Court allows this, it shows that the justices are themselves corrupt.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Over and over again, throughout centuries, throughout all of written history, we've found that the police (and people in general) can't be trusted with this kind of power.
Over those millennia we've tried many different systems, and developed a way to let police catch bad guys while giving them restraints from hurting good people. Our system isn't perfect, but it's a careful balance built over a lot of experience. And now these guys want to upend that balance.
They are more in the problem set than in the solution set.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It shouldn't. But it can. Particularly in the case of spinal pathologies.
Of course, asking you isn't exactly diagnostic, as you're just going to regurgitate the number you've been spitting out for years. What they need to do is measure your height. That way they'd actually learn something.
I want to defend the medical profession for the good they do. But sometimes, they do make it so very, very difficult.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A cashless society is almost impossible to enforce. This is because trade and barter of actual goods bypasses all forms of currency. In order to actually regulate those kinds of transactions, 100% surveillance and corresponding follow-up are required. Even as bad as government intrusion on freedom and liberty is today, we're not even a fraction of the way down that hill.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I would recommend that you never tell your doctor that you use marijuana.
That will usually go into your medical record, because it's part of your medical and social history.
Now with electronic medical records, anybody with access can do a text search for "marijuana" and find it.
The most obvious problem that I can identify is that years later, you might have a legitimate need for opioids.
For example, hip and knee replacements are very painful. In order to be successful, they require physical therapy, which is also very painful, and often can't be done right without opioids. (See Jane Brody's story in the New York Times about her own knee replacements.)
If your medical record mentions marijuana, that can set off some (unscientific) guidelines for using opioids, which require that you sign a "pain contract." You have to take (unnecessary and expensive) drug tests, with (unnecessary and expensive) doctors' visits, with lower doses than would be medically appropriate, and they can discontinue opioids if you test positive for marijuana. Normally it would be a violation of medical ethics to abandon a patient, but these pain contracts allow doctors to unethically abandon a patient if they violate some of these provisions.
The Veterans Administration just backed off on one of those pain contracts after a veteran sued them. But not everybody can afford a lawyer.
http://journalofethics.ama-ass...
Veterans Health Administration Policy on Cannabis as an Adjunct to Pain Treatment with Opiates
Michael Krawitz
AMA Journal of Ethics.
June 2015, 17(6):558-561.
If a doctor specifically asks about marijuana, I think a good answer would be, "You can't guarantee me that this information will be confidential, right?"
Let's add another risk to seeking help for an addiction problem.
That's helpful.
Get your drugs from a state that does not have a PDMP: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.... Lots of mail-order pharmacies operate out of states that do not have a PDMP.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
They just want to remove obstacles to 'parallel construction'
Because there were about 30,000 deaths a year recently from opioids in the US.
This widely-reported number deliberately confuses
--people who take heroin to get high
--people who take prescription drugs without a prescription to get high
-- people who were appropriately prescribed opioids and died anyway
-- people who were appropriately prescribed opioids but given doses that were too low and got additional drugs somewhere
-- people who were prescribed opioids but couldn't afford them so they used cheaper heroin, etc.
It is a legitimate problem, but the Drug Enforcement Agency runs things and their solution to all problems is to put people in prison. When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
You could get a rational discussion of the problem in those silly European magazines like Lancet, BMJ or New Scientist. Unfortunately some of the Europeans are following the American example of stupidity.
Filling up the prisons is done in the name of democracy so I do not see why you object, citizen. Come to think of it, you may have just revoked your citizenship rights. It can be that summary execution of rebellious scum like this was not such a bad idea after all.
Body dumps could be useful too in such case.
If DEA collects metadata, they can find which pharmacists, doctors, etc. are dishing out the opiods. I share peoples concern over DEA getting private data to go after buyers, but I was pretty freaked out by the sting that netted 140 pharmacists in a distribution ring in my home state of Arkansas last year. https://www.justice.gov/usao-e...
Gently reply
I totally understand where you're coming from. In Texas we had a pretty good governor from 1995-2000. He did a good job, earning praise from Democrats in the state legislature as well as Republicans. He was good at working across the aisle and getting things done, so I had high hopes when he was elected president. Oops.
I hoped that Obama would inspire the nation, JFK-style. While his own radio ads about "going after corporations" let me know he was intending to cause harm to business owners such as myself, I hoped he would be special. Not so much.
The good news in all of that is this:
I thought Bush would be good. I was wrong.
I thought Obama would be good, for a Dem. I was wrong.
I thing Trump would be bad. I'll be wrong? I hope so!
I've learned that what a candidate says doesn't tell me much about what a president will do.
> mushrooms were growing out of them.
What kind of mushrooms does the DEA grow? ;)
I mean, why should you be protected if you're a criminal? What's the reasoning. Stop committing crimes.
Because we're all criminals now. Ever go 1 mph / 1 kph over the speed limit? Do you do a "full stop" (usually ~3s) at every stop sign?
The US federal government doesn't even know how many different types of crimes there are in the USC because they don't have the resources to count them:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code#Number_and_growth_of_criminal_laws
So, I prescribe drugs in Washington State, where Marijuana is also legal, and there's a lot of misconceptions about what's included here.
* The records in question are only for controlled substances. That's schedule II-V, so it will include narcotics, stimulants, anti-anxiety (and some sleep) meds, and performance-enhancing drugs, like Testosterone. Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) does not include things like antidepressants, cholesterol meds, erectile dysfucntion meds, or the vast majority of other medications that don't fall into the four categories of controlled substances I mentioned above.
* I can only get records for my state. I wish I could see across state lines, but I can't. I can't even see prescriptions filled at certain military facilities, because while the veterans' administration plays ball, they do not.
* As a provider, accessing the current system is a pain in the butt. It times out after a few minutes, requires challenge questions or out of band activation numbers to log in about 20% of the time, and requires me to click through an acknowledgement screen before every query. To get someone's controlled substance info, I need their name and date of birth. I also have to certify that I have a medical reason to access the data, and it's logged. I'm sure if I tried to look up Bill Gates, I would get investigated. I can also see everything in the database that has been attributed to me, but using that to look for fraud is needle-in-haystack time.
* I don't factor marijuana into consideration when prescribing other controlled substances, now that it is legal for both medical and recreational use in this state. I don't issue green cards, because the DEA still controls my license to prescribe other medications, but a positive marijuana test is not considered an aberrancy.
with pictures of your crap, you know, for medical reasons
check this, is the colour right? am i eating too much meat mr administration?
Everybody forgets the Supreme court was added later when the power of the Federalist party was waning and they needed a way to retain control in the government when their majority in congress was overturned. Their method for that was creating a body that was assigned for life that could deal with interpretation of the law.
And now we have three corrupt bodies all working in collusion with their enforcement arm to fuck us up.
Yay.
Wow 30,000. So it's finally caught up to car crashes. And done so under new, stricter laws. There is already a database of prescribed narcotics patients. Seems it's not helping one bit.
Long answer: there are special laws which protect doctors from revealing information of patients. In job interviews you can even lie about conditions if they do not endanger you and others. This is for a reason. Look in the human rights declaration if you do not understand. DEA you cannot have access to such private data without a warrant.
Damn.
Let the addicts have their favored poison, and quietly remove themselves from the gene pool.
I would rather we had a drug problem than suffer the continuing existence of the DEA. Oh, wait - we still do have a drug problem as well as a DEA. And when the agency goes, can we have back the parts of the Constitution that we deleted for their benefit?
The entire idea that the DEA would remove the drug "problem" is laughable on the face of it. Their existence is predicated on the problem continuing to exist.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Hell hath no fury like an armed agency losing its sense of purpose. Even if we could snap our finger and de-fund them right now, you've got a bunch of guys who are used to carrying guns and wielding power. Same deal with the gangs on the other side. Pot legalization won't make them go away. They're used to living the easy life, and they'll move into other forms of vice and perhaps get even more violent competing for a share of the smaller pie. At least, that's what I heard happened with alcohol prohibition. Don't get me wrong--prohibition was a mistake, and I oppose it; but I'm being realistic about how difficult it's going to be to un-do that mistake.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Not to mention terminal patients who were prescribed "too much" because it's better to live another week in comfort than two in agony.
-- American Gangster
The DEA doesn't have enough resources to go after everyone whose doctor shopping. They're trying to identify doctors who facilitate this. And yes this is a very real problem and being able to query a database and say "which doctors have prescribed 10-100x the national average" would be useful. They still shouldn't be accessing individual records though, it can be anonymized before they use it.
Those who accept "reasonable" exceptions to the Second Amendment should not be surprised when "reasonable" exceptions to the Fourth (or any other) Amendment are also accepted.
After all, these exceptions are all "for the good of society" - who can argue with that?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
If the medical records have no expectation of privacy due to their catch-all " third party " bullshit, then what exactly is the point / purpose of having networks HIPAA certified ?
Are DEA databases considered HIPAA compliant ? They going to assume responsibility ( and penalties ) if / when their database is breached ?
Taking this a step further, would it be safe to assume that any and all data residing in " The Cloud " would have the same definition since you're letting a " third party " manage it for you ?
If somebody named Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden were to submit government records to a third party, the people mentioned in those records have no expectation of privacy! I'm glad Mr Obama clarified that problem.
That would make sense for Medicare, or the US CDC, when sent through some anonymizing function, but not a police department and definitely not identifying data. What's the plan? Arrest people who admit to using cocaine/cannabis, in which case, instant slave workforce. Use "civil forfeiture" against people who over-medicate, in which case, a lot of cancer patients and car-crash victims will be living on the street. Or worse, vilify the medical practitioners who prescribe the 'incorrect' medicines, in which case, the cost of US healthcare will change from sky-high to astronomical.
There's no happy ending in this.
Now what?
The problem with "Third Party doctrine" these days is that it is the government who requires that information be submitted to third parties, it then mines those parties for information which they would usually not have access to. Its similar to some of the phone/internet spying that has taken place in the last few years, it may be illegal for them to monitor domestic communications so they purposely redirect the communications through a foreign exchange so than can claim that domestic wiretap restrictions don't apply. In either case it is a purposeful and blatant end run around the constitution which should end with any government employees involved spending some quality time behind bars.
I think the real truth here is the one(s) responsible for setting the policies of the President is not the President.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
I think the "opiod deaths" number also includes "people who died and we detected opiates in their system". So you die of a heart attack and you are taking Vicodin, you died an opiod related death, even though the direct cause was a heart attack and there may not even be a true link to the drug.
So unless the cause of death is "got shot by crazy stalker", if you are on drugs when you die, the chances are that the death will be scored as drug-related.
I know this is true for marijuana use. If you die in a car accident and they detect canaboid metabolites in your blood, they'll rule it a marijuana-related traffic death. Even if you also happened to be drunk at three times the legal limit, and the pot levels are too low to have caused driving impairment. So the numbers are somewhat inflated.
Drug addict: You mean if I come forward as a drug addict and try to get clean, they're going to arrest me and charge me with a crime? Forget that... I'll just put up with the addiction and try to keep it as quiet as possible.
It was my understanding that one attempt to legitimize criminalization was that it was considered almost a given that in order to support the habit people committed "real crimes", such as robbery and further along the slippery slope even prostitution was a "corime" identified. Drug addiction was among the earliest forms of "precrime".
The illegal drug cartel paid bribes to the USAian govt to shut down the legal drug cartel. Legal drugs kill more people and used to pay more in bribes (eg taxes) to the USAian govt than those selling the illegal drugs. My guess is that the Mexicans after amassing soo much money from selling drugs to the USAian citizens, finally has more money than big pharma, and is using that money to force the DEA to get people off of oxycodone and onto heroin. Or it could just be that the govt needs more information on everyone so that they can promply arrest them when the start becoming too critical of the govt.
It happened to Assange, it happened to Bill Cosby. Today crime runs rampant in the USA. If you get up on a stage and say kids should not dress like gang stars or that the government is corrupt it is very very likely that you raped a bunch of poor innocent girls.
Depending on where you read, the "War on Drugs" in Mexico has been responsible for according to varied estimates, between 140,000 and 160,000 deaths in that country in internecine strife, between 2006- the election of the US puppet Calderon- and 2014.
Drug trafficking in Mexico exited for 70 years, serving the US market. Before Calderon the government knew who the traffickers were (and were paid for the blind eye), the traffickers didnt bother each other or the public. In 2006 with Calderon's election and pressure from the US, that all changed. Military was put on the street. The US tried this in 2000 and Vincente Fox, the newly elected president of Mexico told them to get stuffed. Calderon was Harvard educated (with all that might entail i.e. family associations).
So the DEA causes misery for our neighbors as well.