by Jason Lamb
Monday, June 28, 2010
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska says there's no excuse for the state to violate medical-records privacy laws. The group filed a lawsuit against the state Monday, claiming it ordered a recent police raid of the A Woman's Place clinic in Ketchikan.
The lawsuit says police confiscated about 400 medical records during that raid, even reading them while still in the clinic. According to the lawsuit, a Ketchikan police officer later told a patient's daughter that her mother had contracted a sexually transmitted infection.
The ACLU of Alaska says that's a clear violation of a patient's right to privacy.
"They were teased or taunted with intensely personal information that should not be available to the public," said the group's executive director, Jeffrey Mittman.
The Alaska Department of Law had no comment on Monday's lawsuit.
Contact Jason Lamb at jlamb@ktuu.com
