Having dispensed with the second amendment, those dress-wearing very fine fellows in San Francisco are working on the fourth.

…In the service of your friend and mine, the DEA.

DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs

The DEA has claimed for years that under federal law it has the authority to access [Oregon’s] Prescription Drug Monitor Program database 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.

In 2012 Oregon sued the DEA to prevent it from enforcing the subpoenas to snoop around its drug registry. Two years ago a U.S. District Court found in favor of the state, ruling that prescription data is covered by the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unlawful search and seizure.

But the DEA didn’t stop there. It appealed the ruling to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and has been fighting tooth and nail ever since to access Oregon’s files on its own terms.

Every state but one has some form of Prescription Drug Monitor Program database, and the feds have their fat fingers in every one of them. Now they want to nationalize them, in the name of fighting “opioid abuse.” They do things like that really well, you know.

You don’t have a problem with that, do you? Acting kind of furtive, there, America. If you don’t have anything to hide, what are you so afraid of?

h/t Kentucky