Judge rules health dept must give names of all COVID-19 patients to police
The law is only for the little people: An Illinois judge has ruled that the county health department must give the full list of patients infected with the Wuhan virus to the police, immediately making void all federal and state privacy laws designed to protect our health records.
On Friday, McHenry County Judge Michael Chmiel entered a temporary restraining order mandating that the Health Department disclose to police the names of those actively infected with COVID-19.
…The Health Department refused to reveal the names, prosecutors stated in a news release. Health departments have typically cited privacy concern in withholding such information, specifically the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
What this also means is that if you have been infected with the Wuhan flu, you are now a second class citizen in McHenry County, subject to increased police surveillance and restrictions, regardless of your rights. And your health records are now out of your control, and being freely distributed to government officials.
This story is hardly an outlier. Government officials nationwide are now using the Wuhan flu as an excuse to make them immune from all laws, free to do anything they want in order to increase their power ad infinitum.
If Americans do not resist this abuse of power now, very soon we will not have even the hint of a free nation that we presently retain.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The law is only for the little people: An Illinois judge has ruled that the county health department must give the full list of patients infected with the Wuhan virus to the police, immediately making void all federal and state privacy laws designed to protect our health records.
On Friday, McHenry County Judge Michael Chmiel entered a temporary restraining order mandating that the Health Department disclose to police the names of those actively infected with COVID-19.
…The Health Department refused to reveal the names, prosecutors stated in a news release. Health departments have typically cited privacy concern in withholding such information, specifically the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
What this also means is that if you have been infected with the Wuhan flu, you are now a second class citizen in McHenry County, subject to increased police surveillance and restrictions, regardless of your rights. And your health records are now out of your control, and being freely distributed to government officials.
This story is hardly an outlier. Government officials nationwide are now using the Wuhan flu as an excuse to make them immune from all laws, free to do anything they want in order to increase their power ad infinitum.
If Americans do not resist this abuse of power now, very soon we will not have even the hint of a free nation that we presently retain.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“What’s he building in there?”
Tom Waits
https://youtu.be/JaLjwSpZ6Cs
3:23
The Issue of medical privacy in the time of a legitimate health emergency is a difficult one. Robert’s point, of course, is that the release of such personal information is just another example of government overreach and the abrogation of our most fundamental rights. Horror stories about people being arrested for merely being outside their homes “without proper authorization” now abound under the draconian Corona Virus lock down. On the other hand, it can be argued — as in the link below — that what is at issue is more of an appropriate recalibration of privacy versus reasonable access.
https://www.suwanneedemocrat.com/news/ga_fl_news/norins-increase-transparency-around-covid-19-while-respecting-privacy/article_6753b261-4815-56f5-b9d3-590ce39f39be.html
As always, the question is not so much the *absolute* limit of any given right — per the classic example of one’s “right” to shout “fire in the theater!” — but finding an appropriate mechanism for balancing rights that are in conflict with each other. Life is complicated, and we are often forced to make such choices. Indeed, *making such choices under difficult circumstances* is probably what separates thinking human beings from the rigid absolutists whose only recourse is to
apply pat, zero tolerance formulas. Consider, again, the story (cited in another post) of the dancer who was arrested for conducting televised dance instruction while alone in her studio.
Milt: And we twiddle away our rights and freedoms by contemplating the number of angels on the head of a pin, even as thugs marshal police forces to arrest us for merely breathing improperly.
What exactly is a “legitimate health emergency,” and who is to decide?
“… the county health department must give the full list of patients {Insert preferred Verb} with {Insert Preferred Disorder} to the police,…”
That’s not a slippery slope, that’s falling-off-the-cliff.
Dr. Fauci was/is an ‘expert’ on HIV and AIDs, how about we send a list of HIV patients to the Police. What could possibly go wrong? And who would be complaining the most?
Better Idea: Publish a list of diagnosed disorders (medical & psychological) for every government employee & elected Official.
“Are My Eyes Really Brown?”
Casablanca
-the appropriate clip–
https://youtu.be/ZkM6HegRk3A
1:29
Hello Robert —
I am in no way defending authoritarian absolutists like Michigan’s Governor Whitmer.* Quite the opposite, and this may be one of those times that “extremism in the defense of liberty”* actually applies. That is, we should probably err on the side of demanding that our rights are observed, at least in MOST cases.
*See https://www.azquotes.com/author/5665-Barry_Goldwater
My point, rather, is that there ARE times when rights are in conflict, and there is no cut and dried formula for determining *which* rights should take precedence in any given situation. Likewise, rigid absolutists tend to believe that such conflicts never obtain in real life, and that there is never a need to balance one right against another.
PS — I also like Senator Goldwater’s take on those statists who want to impose their ideological utopias on us:
“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.”
PPS — As for the lovely and talented Governor Whitmer, I lean toward the description of people like her given in the classic
Saturday Night skit. What a piece of work this strident authoritarian harpie is! What cesspool of tyranny did this creature crawl out of?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM
PS to other contributors —
Did anyone else actually read Ms. Norins’ comments?
Milt: This is not the time to be discussing the times “when rights are in conflict.”
Right now the governments of the U.S., at all levels, are trying to steal them all.
When we are in saner times I would be glad to argue the issue. Not now.
Akira The Don & Jordan Peterson –
“Tarantulas” ?️
Words by Friedrich Nietzsche
https://youtu.be/7zIkUkRLJAM
7:59
“When they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be Pharisees… if only they had – power!”
That linked article goes on about “the peoples right to know” and the “ability of local governments to make informed decisions” but all her arguments are on generic number/location data. The judge in this case ordered them to release NAMES. There is no reasonable need for the police to have that information, and there is no remotely constitutional use to which they can put that information. As I’ve argued on other subjects, notably many firearms restrictions, the rights of the people don’t end just because some government official says “well, I can’t do my job properly taking those rights into account”. It’s presumed that the government has a desire, perhaps even a need for any regulation or law they pass, but “shall not” in the bill of rights is supposed to mean exactly that. King George’s government had valid goals for many of the intolerable measures, and we still thought it was worth a rebellion to stop.
What has long burned my craw, is that when it comes to the 14th amendment and the whole panoply of sex, race, ethnicity etc, THOSE rights are sacrosanct, given strict scrutiny, and the courts tend to just assume from the start that any regulation viewed as infringing is automatically wrong. But the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments, not so much.
Robert wrote: “This is not the time to be discussing the times ‘when rights are in conflict.’”
This is, however, the time to be most vigilant of our liberty. This is the price of liberty, which we are losing very rapidly.
As David notes, we aren’t being vigilant enough. We already lost the Tenth Amendment, and probably the Ninth Amendment, as well. Much of the rest of the Bill of Rights is under attack, and we must protect them now, before they go the way of the Tenth Amendment.
Ya think those nice ladies with the pink hats that are always screaming “my body my choice” are going to stand up for personal rights? Or will they be the ones to line up everyone else telling them they don’t have a choice…
They will tell you it’s “just a test” for the good of the public, but it’s never the test you think it is.
There’s always the added we’re going to give you “this” and “this” that our records show you’ve never had “this”, or not had a booster of that, and a shot of this New stuff that the government has authorized us to experiment on you with, that is said, will make you live forever… by the way do you have any guns in the home? This medication and guns do not mix, will have to take those to protect your neighbors from side effects.
The test results are… It doesn’t matter, if it’s positive or negative is both bad. You can’t win in a fixed game. All they’re interested in is if you’re going to be trouble, if the test shows that you’re a conservative, it’s quarantine at the reeducation camp for you!
(freedom is infectious and you must stomp it out before it spreads)
Picture of a boot on your neck, forever.
David, Edward, Max —
Your points are well taken, and, yes, giving the NAMES of individuals with CV (or whatever) to the authorities is not a happy thing. Also, the analogy with gun ownership is very fitting, and similar arguments apply. Just look — if you can stand to — at the efforts of the government of Virginia and its red flag laws in this respect. None of their darn business who has what “bad” guns.
Everyone keeps saying that even after the CV outbreak has been quelled, things will be “different” in this country, and this “difference” goes to the heart of this discussion and Robert’s main point. When the dust settles, will our rights be more or less secure, and what will we have given up in the process? Judging by some of the commentary in the conservative media, at least a few people (other than the readers of this post) are beginning to think about the long term implications of all of this. When this is “over,” I would like to think that a sufficient number of people will have become “woke” (to borrow a term) to the idea of just how much freedom might be lost and how to go about preventing this from happening.
Calls to our representatives in Congress and letters to the editors of our local papers come to mind, but the protests — as in Michigan — that are happening also have a place. Retaining / reclaiming our freedoms in the face of the CV debacle needs to become a certified national MOVEMENT — not just a passing thought. (How can this meme go viral? How can the theme of retaining our rights and freedoms become a part of the ongoing 2020 presidential race?) Then, as Robert suggests, we can quibble over the fine points. (I enjoy quibbling, I suppose.)
They are starting to treat this flu like virus like its leprosy.
All cases must be reported and tracked.
Stupid.