Probation For Threatening To Blow Up Field Office

     From Michigan Live:

U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington on Thursday, Jan. 30, sentenced Latashya L. Brooks to two years of probation. While on probation, Brooks must participate in a mental health treatment program, take all prescribed medications, and submit to psychological evaluations as directed by her probation officer. 

Brooks in October appeared in the federal courthouse in downtown Bay City and pleaded guilty to interstate communication to make a bomb threat. The charge is punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.

The plea agreement stated Brooks’ sentencing guidelines were one year to 18 months. Court records show Judge Ludington departed downward from the guidelines due to Brooks’ “limited mental conditions,” “reduced mental capacity,” and it being her first criminal conviction. 

The agreement states that Brooks was upset over the Social Security Administration withholding things from her checks. On May 3, she called the administration office at 611 E. Genesee St. in Saginaw and spoke with an employee. 

During the call, Brooks threatened to “blow up your (expletive)ing building and accept the consequences,” the plea agreement states. When the employee told Brooks she should not threaten government buildings, Brooks replied that she didn’t care and would “do the time,” the document states. ...

Did It Matter?

     About two and a half years ago Social Security changed its policies on voluntary remands, that is cases where the agency agrees that a case on appeal to the United States District Court should be remanded to the agency.

     I'm curious. Has there been a change in the rate at which Social Security agrees to voluntary remands since that change in policy? Has there been a change in what they do after voluntary remands? Did the policy change matter?

Fichtner Nomination To SSAB Advances

     The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for February 5 on three nominations. One of them is the nomination of Jason J. Fichtner to be a member of the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB).

Rep Payee Fraud In Washington State

     From a press release:

A Kitsap County [WA] man who ran a business serving as a financial guardian for elderly or disabled clients pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to Social Security Fraud – Representative Payee Fraud. WAYNE JEROME HOUSTON, 61, of Port Ludlow, Washington owned and operated Cross Point Services LLC, a guardianship organization for disabled and vulnerable adults.  ...

According to the plea agreement, HOUSTON and his company were responsible for managing the financial affairs of 15-20 clients a month.  HOUSTON had access to the clients’ bank accounts so he could pay rent, utilities and other bills for them.  Social Security benefits were paid into some of the accounts, for at least 13 clients who required a representative payee to manage their benefits.  HOUSTON was the representative payee for at least 13 disabled clients.  Beginning in 2010, HOUSTON used his position as guardian to write checks from the victim accounts to himself, to Cross Point Services, or to cash, and used ATMs to withdraw money from client accounts and used it for his own expenses.  HOUSTON targeted clients who had significant income or resources so that the theft was less likely to be detected.

The amount stolen is still under investigation but is between $150,000 and $280,941.   Of that, approximately $83,000 was Social Security Administration benefit funds. ...

Big HITECH Setback

     An e-mail message from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Civil Rights Division listserver:

On January 25, 2013, HHS published a final rule entitled “Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act; Other Modifications to the HIPAA Rules.”  (2013 Omnibus Rule).  A portion of that rule was challenged in federal court, specifically provisions within 45 C.F.R. §164.524, that cover an individual’s access to protected health information.  On January 23, 2020, a federal court vacated the “third-party directive” within the individual right of access “insofar as it expands the HITECH Act’s third-party directive beyond requests for a copy of an electronic health record with respect to [protected health information] of an individual  . . . in an electronic format.” Additionally, the fee limitation set forth at 45 C.F.R. § 164.524(c)(4) will apply only to an individual’s request for access to their own records, and does not apply to an individual’s request to transmit records to a third party.

The right of individuals to access their own records and the fee limitations that apply when exercising this right are undisturbed and remain in effect.  OCR will continue to enforce the right of access provisions in 45 C.F.R. § 164.524 that are not restricted by the court order.  A copy of the court order in Ciox Health, LLC v. Azar, et al., No. 18-cv-0040 (D.D.C. January 23, 2020), may be found at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2018cv0040-51.

     This means that Ciox and other similar companies are now bound only by state laws limiting how much they can charge. It's nearly hand to hand combat against these ripoff artists.

Lawsuit On Impostor Phone Calls

     From a press release (emphasis added):

The Department of Justice filed civil actions for temporary restraining orders today in two landmark cases against five companies and three individuals allegedly responsible for carrying hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls to American consumers, the Department of Justice announced.  The Department of Justice alleges that the companies were warned numerous times that they were carrying fraudulent robocalls — including government- and business-imposter calls — and yet continued to carry those calls and facilitate foreign-based fraud schemes targeting Americans.  The calls, most of which originated in India, led to massive financial losses to elderly and vulnerable victims across the nation. ...

The two cases announced today contain similar allegations.  The defendants in one case are Ecommerce National LLC d/b/a TollFreeDeals.com; SIP Retail d/b/a sipretail.com; and their owner/operators, Nicholas Palumbo, 38, and Natasha Palumbo, 33, of Scottsdale, Arizona.  The defendants in the other case include Global Voicecom Inc., Global Telecommunication Services Inc., KAT Telecom Inc., aka IP Dish, and their owner/operator, Jon Kahen, 45, of Great Neck, New York.  In each case, the Department of Justice sought an order immediately halting the defendants’ transmission of unlawful robocall traffic.  A federal court has entered a temporary restraining order against the Global Voicecom defendants. ...

In the cases announced today, the United States alleges that the defendants operated voice over internet protocol (VoIP) carriers, which use an internet connection rather than traditional copper phone lines to carry telephone calls.  Numerous foreign-based criminal organizations are alleged to have used the defendants’ VoIP carrier services to pass fraudulent government- and business-imposter fraud robocalls to American victims.  The complaints filed in the cases specifically allege that defendants served as “gateway carriers,” making them the entry point for foreign-initiated calls into the U.S. telecommunications system.  The defendants carried astronomical numbers of robocalls.  For example, the complaint against the owners/operators of Ecommerce National d/b/a TollFreeDeals.com alleges that the defendants carried 720 million calls during a sample 23-day period, and that more than 425 million of those calls lasted less than one second, indicating that they were robocalls.  The complaint further alleges that many of the 720 million calls were fraudulent and used spoofed (i.e., fake) caller ID numbers.  The calls facilitated by the defendants falsely threatened victims with a variety of catastrophic government actions, including termination of social security benefits, imminent arrest for alleged tax fraud and deportation for supposed failure to fill out immigration forms correctly. ...

     So, why aren't they indicting the U.S. residents in this case? It makes you wonder about the strength of the evidence.

Opposition To CDR Speedup Spreads

     From Newsweek:

More than 140 lawmakers in the House and Senate have signed open letters hitting out at a "harmful and unjustified" Trump administration proposal that could see thousands of Americans lose their disability benefits.

Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were among those who put their names to the letters calling on the administration to scrap its proposed rule change, which would increase the frequency of disability reviews faced by some benefits recipients if it comes into effect.

The Senate letter was signed by a total of 41 senators. Newsweek understands that more than 100 signatures have been collected on the House letter so far, with more to come. ...

Further Telework Cuts

     From Government Executive:

The Social Security Administration on Monday informed employees of its various subcomponents that it will move forward with new cuts to telework policies, a move quickly decried by union officials who said they were left out of the notification process. ...

Rich Couture, who serves both as a spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees’ general committee representing Social Security employees and president of AFGE Council 215, which represents workers at the agency’s hearings and appeals offices, said management similarly rejected his own efforts to learn about the changes, and that he spent much of his afternoon in meetings and working with fellow union representatives to cobble together a list of the reforms across the agency.

“I’ve got to tell you, the depth of disrespect and disregard for AFGE with the rollout of this announcement, where the press found out before the union and the union found out at the last minute through a bare-bones notice . . . this basically illustrates to me that there’s no relationship anymore between SSA and AFGE,” Couture said. “There was no advance notice to the local reps that these meetings were to be held, and we have a statutory right to advance notice. This is part of a consistent trend along those lines that this was entirely deliberate.”

According to reports from various union officials, the telework cuts vary by agency subcomponent. In the most drastic instance, legal assistants who do pre- and post-hearing case development work for administrative law judges will only be able to work remotely one day per two-week pay period, down from the current policy allowing employees to telework up to three days per week.

Workers in the Office of Quality Review, which has had telework for nearly 20 years, will all see their existing telework agreements slashed by one day per week. And although there is no policy change for attorneys who do decision-writing for administrative law judges in the Office of Hearings and Appeals, each employee with an existing telework agreement must file paperwork to apply for a new one by February 7 or lose the ability to work remotely altogether. ...

Social Security’s actions appear to defy the spirit of a congressional mandate enacted last month as part of the fiscal 2020 appropriations bills, which instructed the agency to come up with a plan to restore telework to employees in its operations divisions within 60 days. ...