In a preternatural example of tone-deafness, an administration under fire for snooping into Americans’ privacy is now proposing to waive federal privacy laws so psychiatrists can report their gun-owning patients to the government.
The Department of Health and Human Service’s “notice of proposed rule-making,” floated by the White House in a Friday media dump, would waive portions of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to allow psychiatrists to report their patients to the FBI’s gun-ban blacklist (the NICS system) on the basis of confidential communications.
The 1968 Gun Control Act bans guns for anyone who is “adjudicated as a mental defective or … committed to a mental institution.” Unfortunately, under 2008 NICS Improvement Act, drafted by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and its regulations, that “adjudication” can be made by any “other lawful authority.” This means a diagnosis by a single psychiatrist in connection with a government program.