Medical Firm Sues IRS For 4th Amendment Violation In Records Seizure 365
cold fjord writes "A healthcare provider has sued the Internal Revenue Service and 15 of its agents, charging they wrongfully seized 60 million medical records from 10 million Americans ... [The unnamed company alleges] the agency violated the Fourth Amendment in 2011, when agents executed a search warrant for financial data on one employee – and that led to the seizure of information on 10 million, including state judges. The search warrant did not specify that the IRS could take medical information, UPI said. And information technology officials warned the IRS about the potential to violate medical privacy laws before agents executed the warrant, the complaint said." Also at Nextgov.com.
Re:Propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
They had a search warrant for financial data regarding one former employee, and they took tens of millions of medical records too, which they weren't entitled to.
Warrant said they could take A, they took A and B.....ZZZZZZZZ. Everything from B on was unrelated information to the investigation proper, and not covered by the warrant. They stepped over the line, despite being warned. How is this confusing to you?
Re:It's SO WEIRD to read stuff like this. (Score:2, Informative)
Why couldn't you get this angry at Bush Corp when it was doing similar or worse stuff
Can you point the rest of the world to where Bush n' Co, were doing the same deal as Nixon. That's right you can't. Though Obama and Co were, and are. While attempting to claim that "it's someone below me, I know nothing." Perhaps it was Sgt. Shultz that is really in charge of the whitehouse...one can't be too sure.
Lots of us were down on Bush, too. (Score:5, Informative)
Why couldn't you get this angry at Bush Corp when it was doing similar or worse stuff?
Lots of us were down on Bush, too.
You just probably thought we were lefties. B-)
Re:They're just getting a head start on Obamacare. (Score:5, Informative)
If you read it, you would know.
Nancy said we had to "pass it to find out what was in it". When you are a jillionaire insider trader, like her, you don't care what it says. You can buy your own hospital if you don't like ObamaCare.
That's because the House and Senate were each debating and amending the bill(s) simultaneously, IIRC. This was done on both sides to speed up the process I guess. If either one or both passed it would go to the other side and a joint committee work out something both sides agree to, and since it was so big, there was a lot of room for differences between what they pass and what the committee pooped out. I'm pretty sure that's what she meant.
Re:They're just getting a head start on Obamacare. (Score:5, Informative)
Where in the legislation does it say they could seize the 60 million records they are accused of taking, "despite knowing that these medical records were not within the scope of the warrant?"
Where in the legislation does it say they can target specific political affiliations to deny/delay tax exempt status or use special scrutiny as a bullying tactic?
If these aren't bright enough red flags for you:
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [gpo.gov]
Where 'Secretary' refers to the Secretary of the Treasury. This section describes what is to be reported to the IRS. Sections (i) through (iii) specify name, address, tax id number and policy information. Section (iv) is completely open ended.
Editors: Check Your Sources (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, TFA is at The Washington Times. That alone makes its credibility dubious. The Washington Times was founded by Sun Myung Moon [wikipedia.org] (crazy "Unification Church" cult leader) who stated that the purpose of the "newspaper" was to be "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world." Moon was convicted that same year of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy and served 13 months in prison. The Times has long been known as a conservative shill (although it has a decent sports section) that had to be financially supported by Moon's "church" to survive. Moon spent nearly $2 billion of his followers' money over 20 years to keep the paper afloat.
Second, The Washington Times article doesn't even claim to have done any reporting on its own... it cites some article from UPI that isn't readily available on UPI's home page or even by searching UPI for "IRS." Ultimately found the "article" here [upi.com]. It's a 9-paragraph blog posting. UPI was once a respectable news agency like AP or Reuters, but its relevance diminished to the point where it was bought out in 2000 [wikipedia.org] by... you guessed it: Sun Myung Moon. UPI's White House correspondent retired the next day after 57 years with the organization. These days UPI doesn't even have a White House correspondent, and its finances have gotten so bad that it relies on free articles contributed by college students.
The UPI blog posting cites a Courthouse News Service article [courthousenews.com]: John Doe Company sued 15 John Doe IRS agents in Superior Court. The plaintiff's attorney alleges that the records affected may include those of "politically controversial members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, and prominent citizens in the world of entertainment, business and government, from all walks of life." He goes on to complain that the unnamed IRS agents "decided to use John Doe Company's media system to watch basketball, ordering pizza and Coca-Cola, to take in part of the NCAA tournament," but "Plaintiff's attorney Robert E. Barnes declined to elaborate on the complaint's allegations, saying he will have more information 'in a few months.'"
Why publish a story no one can verify, since all you can say for now is that that unnamed people at the IRS are illegally snooping on unnamed politically controversial people through an unnamed medical firm? Because it helps fuel the fire driving the current Republican party line of "the IRS is evil and Obama is responsible." Because some ignorant blogger might pick it up and run with it, thinking that The Washington Times and UPI are real news organizations, and not even bother to look for the source of this story. Great job Timothy.
Re:It's SO WEIRD to read stuff like this. (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, Richard Armitage was a long time Republican who, prior to being given a job by newly elected President Reagan was an aide to Republican Senator Bob Dole. In the interests of denying Republicans another chance to rewrite history, I had to contradict your - possibly unintentional - misinformation.
Re:It's SO WEIRD to read stuff like this. (Score:2, Informative)
BTW, Richard Armatage is a Clinton-ite.
No, he wasn't. Who the fuck keeps modding this shit up? Jesus Christ, you people just keep getting dumber and dumber.