Class Action Lawsuit Alleges that Surveillance of Mental Health Records is Unconstitutional

As reported by CourtHouse News.

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New York State is collecting confidential information on mental health patients to create a database of people it deems unfit to carry a firearm, according to a federal class action.

Lead plaintiff Donald Montgomery claims the state created a reporting system, as part of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (Safe Act), that forces health professionals to transmit mental health patients' confidential information to a database shared by various government agencies, including law enforcement. It was part of the state's response to the rash of mass shootings over the past several years, in particular, that in Newtown, Conn.

Montgomery estimates that medical providers have reported such information on more than 60,000 people.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the lead defendant, signed the Safe Act into law in January 2013. Montgomery calls him "the principal architect of the Act."

New York Mental Hygiene Law 9.46 compels health professionals to report patients' data to the state if they feel the patients' actions are "likely to result in serious harm to self or others," the complaint states.

"The personal health information amassed includes, but is not limited to, any mental health diagnosis of a patient. The personal health information is shared by numerous agencies, including, but not limited to law enforcement and non-state agencies and offices," the lawsuit states.

"The state does not use a subpoena to obtain this confidential personal health information. The state has made the affirmative misrepresentation to medical professionals and others that transmitting this data is lawful."

Neither the state nor the treatment providers notify patients about the information sharing, the lawsuit states. It adds: "The Office of Mental Health underplays and misrepresents the seriousness of the personal health information being transmitted. The state intends its operations around MHL 9.46 to be conducted in a secretive and over-reaching manner."

The law defines mental health professionals as physicians, psychologists, registered nurses and social workers, according to the lawsuit.