Originally Posted by
JBird
No doubt people who dishonestly fill out a VA or FAA document should suffer appropriate punishment when it comes to light. But because there is a ver small number of people who do that, shouldn’t give the FAA blanket authority to investigate a pilot group in secret and apparently outside the scope of due process. Your painting with too wide of a brush.
I disagree. It's very similar to the NDR check they do on every medical, except they didn't warn you in advance.
But there's no obvious reason that it's not legal, they are comparing databases for which they have legal access since HIPAA does not apply to all federal admin or financial data. IIRC congress actually enacted law to ALLOW the FAA and VA to share this data, some years back.
Your opinion isn't unreasonable, but it's just an opinion, the law says different and it has been exercised in this fashion at least twice this century. If you don't like it, write your congress critters, AOPA, and ALPA and see if someone will take up the cause. Kind of doubt it, since protecting pilots who hide fraudulent medical applications isn't going to be high on anyone's sympathy list.
Worst case, the FAA might decide (or be told) to add a written disclaimer on the 8500 form, just like what they have for the NDR.
Also this has been a known thing for a number of years, it's been in the news and I've made a point of publicizing it here to help get the word out. Why do people think they can still get away with it? It's not 1985...
This is from 12 years ago, I warned back then that this might be coming. They did wait until we pulled out of IQ/AF first, bad optics picking on vets during a hot war.
"Are you receiving disability payments?"