What happened, [WBEN Buffalo radio host Tom Bauerle] explains, is that the state has a special HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) unit to search private medical records without warrants, and that Lewis was simply the first person to be caught up in that net.

It’s a scheme “to deprive New York citizens of basic protections,” Bauerle charges, where the state wants “carte blanche to look at every person’s medical records and cross-reference them with pistol permit holders” for purposes of confiscation and permit revocation. According to Baurele, his sources tell him this is being coordinated with officials in the Department of Homeland Security, and there was a meeting in Albany with the New York State Police and the Division of Criminal Justice Services “at the impetus of DHS.”

Bauerle alleges there is “a clandestine squad” violating the Fourth Amendment and circumventing HIPAA privacy protections in order to revoke pistol permits from those who have been prescribed anti-depressants or who have undergone mental health treatment...