If you induce someone to violate HIPAA who is covered by it (like say a nurse at a hospital), you can be criminally liable. There is no carve-out for journalists. BOTH the person who gave the record and the person who induced them to give it could be liable (not in the same way, possibly). In any case, you seemed to think there was a bright line rule of some sort, that "At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA", which is not a thing† (HIPAA constrains covered entities, not reporters)." when in fact you can be criminally liable for inducement/conspiracy etc if you induce someone who is covered to give you those records, under https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1320d-6

Here is another similar case of a non-medical person violating HIPAA.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtn/pr/memphis-man-sentenced-c...

Take the L :-)

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tptacek 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

No, I don't think I will. Reporters covering public policy matters and obtaining records from covered entities have First Amendment protection arguments that a conspiracy among insiders and external mules to sell health information don't have. But none of this is my point. I'm not arguing that it would be impossible for Boudin's office to allege wrongdoing. I'm arguing that they failed to do so. Like, a really basic thing: where'd she get the X-Rays from? The allegation doesn't say.

I'm commenting on the specific thing Boudin's office (inexplicably) wrote about this particular reporter. I'm not making a grand statement about HIPAA.

(I don't know anything about the reporter other than that they worked for ABC7 in SFBA and not like GatewayPundit).

	▲	phonon a minute ago \| parent [-]
		It would depend on exactly how the records were obtained. If hypothetically she paid a nurse $100 for it (and had done so many times in the past), that could be criminally liable. In practice, no-one would prosecute over a single x-ray. But when a reporter gets legally protected medical information "somehow", an insinuation that a legal violation took place at some point to effect that is not unreasonable.