We’ve long known that many of the techniques used to combat terrorism derived from the drug war. We’ve known that law enforcement agencies around the country are adopting counterterrorism techniques–and even PATRIOT Act tools–in regular law enforcement.
Robert Mueller just explained that the FBI is taking lessons learned in its counterterrorism intelligence techniques to combat healthcare fraud.
The comment was in response to a question from Amy Klobuchar. She noted that MN has pretty good success at cracking down on healthcare fraud, but inquired about “hot spots” in healthcare fraud.
Mueller responded by lauding the lessons FBI has learned in counterterrorism, then said [these are my notes–I’ll check his exact quote later], “building an intelligence infrastructure across the country allows us to see where … they’re going to go to next,” implying that they were using intelligence techniques to figure out where new healthcare fraud networks were going to pop up next.
Now, as Josh Gerstein noted on Twitter, FBI used the kind of administrative subpoenas now used to combat terrorism before they were used for terrorism. But Mueller’s comment seemed to suggest far more: I assume, given his reference to intelligence networks, FBI is using informants and the like to infiltrate suspected healthcare fraud networks.
I’m all in favor of making sure Medicare and Medicaid money goes to healthcare. But isn’t the use of intelligence networks in the healthcare industry rather invasive?