According to CMS's security program documentation, Medicare and Medicaid are a covered entities under HIPAA, subject to 60 day notice to affected individuals, reporting to HHS OCR, and notice to media outlets when a breach affects more than 500 residents of a state.
Not to mention this violated a standing court order.
This is a serious problem that nobody has figured out how to address. The complete lack of principles.
Police state against my enemies but not me and the good guys. It's all so tiresome.
I'm not the one you asked, but: Me, personally, I'd draw the line at the independence of the courts. If the courts are independent, if they can rule against the police for failure to prove their case or for procedural violations or whatever, then it's not a police state. If the police win the borderline cases (or worse, the clearly bogus cases) just because they're the police, then it's a police state.
Followup question:
Do you think public defenders are given adequate funding to ensure they can give proper defense to their clients?