Last edited Tue Jul 23, 2013, 03:27 PM - Edit history (2)
Is the government constructing a database?
Not by the traditional definition of "database." The "hub" the government is creating is a mechanism for extracting data from a variety of databases that exist at other agencies. The hub doesn’t collect, centralize and store data; it is designed to allow real-time access to data that resides on the servers of other agencies in order to verify transactions related to the health insurance exchanges created under Obama’s law.
In an April 22, 2013, release, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of HHS, said that it has completed the hub’s technical design and is in the midst of testing it. "The hub will not store consumer information, but will securely transmit data between state and federal systems to verify consumer application information," the center said in the statement. HHS pledges "strict privacy controls to safeguard personal information," added Brian Cook, a spokesman for the department.
"This is not a huge national database of health records," said Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for Internet freedom.
From a 2007 letter from Rep. Brad Miller, then-chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023321556
But documents now indicate that the FTTTF is expanding its mission to encompass the
"detection, identification, and tracking of individuals or entities that pose threats to the United
States and its interests through the use of advanced analytical techniques, technologies, and data
resources." This mission will be accomplished through the use of bulk data analysis, pattern
analysis, trend analysis and other programs, according to Justice Department budget documents
reviewed by the Subcommittee. "The FBI's efforts to define predictive models and patterns of
behavior will improve efforts to identify "sleeper cells," the documents suggest. The centerpiece
ofthis greatly enhanced effort will be a newly proposed National Security Branch Analysis
Center (NSAC).
The FBI is seeking $12 million for the center in FY2008, which will include 90,000
square feet of office space and a total of 59 staff, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents.
Documents predict the NSAC will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20
separate "records" for each man, woman and child in the United States. The ''universe of
subjects will expand exponentially" with the expanded role of the NSAC, the Justice Department
documents assert.
The expanded and sweeping scope of the NSAC bears a striking resemblance to the
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness program which
Congress terminated funding for in 2003 because of privacy and other concerns. Sharing critical
information that can help law enforcement officer' s track down known terrorists is
extraordinarily important and needs to be improved.
But the NSAC proposes to do much more
than simply track down known terrorist suspects. Eleven of its proposed 59 staff will constitute
a Proactive Data Exploitation unit - tasked with ferreting out "patterns" of suspicious behavior in
the data the center collects. "The NSAC will leverage existing data mining tools to help identify
relationships between individuals, locations, and events that may be indicators of terrorist or
other activities of interest," according to the Justice Department budget documents
~snip~
Given the scope of the NSAC endeavor, Congress has a duty to understand fully what
information will be contained in the "records" it collects, whether the "records" of U.S. citizens
will be included in its database, how this data will be employed and how the FBI plans to ensure
that the data is not misused or abused in any way.
A critical question is how the FBI will ensure
that the records it obtains from other agencies is accurate, valid and complies with federal legal
guidelines and policies. The FTTTF, for instance, shares "innovative technology" with the
Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) and the proposed NSAC will
presumably maintain or expand on this relationship. This is of particular concern given the fact
that the Defense Department has acknowledged that CIFA was compiling data in one of its
databases on non-violent war protesters and civil rights activists in violation of DOD's own
policies. The Bureau needs to beware that it does not repeat the mistakes of other agencies.
Even with those assurances the agency may have difficulty developing and operating the NSAC.
So if collecting info on millions of Americans is useless for catching terrorists, what is it good for? Hmm...
Edit to add: If Google searches for, say, " ___ cancer symptoms" could be flagged, that info could be given to health insurers to determine whether one is being fraudulent in claiming that they have no health issues when acquiring health insurance, and as such, subject to rescission. Or, expecting health issues, health insurers may decide to raise premiums.
FAQs About the Affordable Care Act Implementation Part II
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-aca2.html
Rescissions
Q7: The Affordable Care Act (through Public Health Service Act section 2712) generally provides that plans and issuers must not rescind coverage unless there is fraud or an individual makes an intentional misrepresentation of material fact. A rescission is defined as it is commonly understood under the law – a cancellation or discontinuance of coverage that has a retroactive effect, except to the extent attributable to a failure to pay timely premiums towards coverage.
Is the exception to the statutory ban on rescission limited to fraudulent or intentional misrepresentations about prior medical history? What about retroactive terminations of coverage in the “normal course of business”?
The statutory prohibition related to rescissions is not limited to rescissions based on fraudulent or intentional misrepresentations about prior medical history. An example in the Departments’ interim final regulations on rescissions clarifies that some plan errors (such as mistakenly covering a part-time employee and providing coverage upon which the employee relies for some time) may be cancelled prospectively once identified, but not retroactively rescinded unless there was some fraud or intentional misrepresentation by the employee.
On the other hand, some plans and issuers have commented that some employers’ human resource departments may reconcile lists of eligible individuals with their plan or issuer via data feed only once per month. If a plan covers only active employees (subject to the COBRA continuation coverage provisions) and an employee pays no premiums for coverage after termination of employment, the Departments do not consider the retroactive elimination of coverage back to the date of termination of employment, due to delay in administrative record-keeping, to be a rescission.
Similarly, if a plan does not cover ex-spouses (subject to the COBRA continuation coverage provisions) and the plan is not notified of a divorce and the full COBRA premium is not paid by the employee or ex-spouse for coverage, the Departments do not consider a plan’s termination of coverage retroactive to the divorce to be a rescission of coverage. (Of course, in such situations COBRA may require coverage to be offered for up to 36 months if the COBRA applicable premium is paid by the qualified beneficiary.)
The key vote in determining the constitutionality of the ACA was Justice Roberts, the same person who picks the judges for the FISA court.
= new reply since forum marked as read
