5/18/2026 at 7:24:27 PM
The Chesa Boudin DA "misrepresentations" document, linked towards the end of this story, is weak, bordering on Trumpian. It highlights as "misrepresentations" cases where Boudin simply disagrees with Lim about a statement of opinion (whether his office was suitable forthcoming, organized, or deflecting). At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA", which is not a thing† (HIPAA constrains covered entities, not reporters).I think both sides of this conflict (Tan and Radley) are talking past each other and scoring points for their respective sides; Radley is famously an advocate of progressive prosecutors, and Tan (IIRC) worked to remove Boudin. I don't expect a totally accurate and balanced retelling from either side, in the same way that you should not expect a completely neutral report on inner-ring suburban housing policy from me (I'm a housing activist).
But I did come away from this with a lower opinion of Boudin's office.
(For what it's worth, I was extremely optimistic about the wave of progressive prosecutors led by Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and while I have some Radley Balko issues, I've been reading John Pfaff on this stuff for a decade. What's happened to my worldview since then is that I feel like I've watched outsider-y progressives get elected into prosecutor roles and then fail their constituencies not because of ideology but over basic competency issues. I'd be foursquare behind a progressive prosecutor in a major city that ran a tight ship; we tried this in Chicago and didn't get that.)
† btw: if you're the DA for a jurisdiction that includes a reporter, and you claim the reporter's journalism is unlawful, you sure as shit better have that right.
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 9:48:21 PM
> I feel like I've watched outsider-y progressives get elected into prosecutor roles and then fail their constituencies not because of ideology but over basic competency issuesHuh, I went through a similar journey in New York, starting as an advocate of criminal-justice reform and then getting fed up with the incompetence.
And while I wouldn't say ideological inflexibility is ideology per se, one of the contributors to ineffectiveness I saw in New York was a simultaneous inability to tolerate competent people with even slightly-divergent viewpoints (and there were a lot of red lines–I don't know what multidimensional beast could thread them), or, alternatively, an inability to fire or beach clearly-incompetent people because they were part of a priority community. (Read "community" broadly. It might be an identity. It was more often whatever union or local progressive club the person cropped up through.)
by JumpCrisscross
5/18/2026 at 10:58:34 PM
Some of the difficulties of criminal-justice reform include: you can't arrest your way out of mental illness. It's easier for society to lock up the mentally ill in with a 1-dollar bond that it is to provide the help that they need. It's probably cheaper to do give them the housing and help, but it's easier to get money for jails and jailers than it is to get money for mental health facilities.by abirch
5/19/2026 at 1:48:40 AM
> It's probably cheaper to do give them the housing and help, but it's easier to get money for jails and jailers than it is to get money for mental health facilities.It’s not really. We are approaching $100k/year in Seattle just to house someone in a tiny home or apartment building as charged to the city/county by local non profits, without any help beyond that (and no guarantee that they wont go out and, for example, shoot a pregnant woman driving a Tesla). Prison/jail is only around $60k/year, in comparison. There must be some corruption going on, but no one in government will even consider it as a possibility.
by seanmcdirmid
5/21/2026 at 1:06:26 PM
If prison is so much cheaper, why don't they build something like a prison, but without all the restrictions on freedom, and house people there? It should be even cheaper.I can't imagine how it could possibly cost $100k/year to house someone. Rent for a small flat is under $1000/month or you're living in a failed state. Food is definitely well under $1000/month or you're living in a failed state, and everything else like electricity, internet, cellphone is under $500/month though I could be wrong on that one, so that's $30k/year absolute pessimistic max - what's the rest?
by pocksuppet
5/18/2026 at 10:59:37 PM
I agree that this is a major challenge, but (for example) it has basically nothing to do with the carjacking phenomenon. I'm just saying, this stuff is complicated, and anyone with a straightforward solution is wrong.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 6:51:33 AM
>but (for example) it has basically nothing to do with the carjacking phenomenon.Nevermind if this is even a "phenomenon". How about we just pick 2 or 3 issues and actually solve those first? It's very clear that we are at best spreading ourselves thin and at worst being distracted by everything in a malicious attempt to flood the zone. We aren't angry enough at any single issue as a result.
Pick 2-3 main issues, and just spend an entire year tackling those. Easier PR, easier accountability.
by johnnyanmac
5/19/2026 at 1:16:37 AM
[flagged]by rayiner
5/19/2026 at 1:43:06 AM
"George Floyd's community is better off with him gone" is absolutely not OK on this site.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 1:26:53 PM
Rayiner has interesting beliefs about black people.by UncleMeat
5/20/2026 at 4:26:33 AM
What’s interesting is that you take a felon who held a woman at gunpoint while robbing her, and sympathize with him based on his skin color.I’ve never read a story about “brown” terrorists and felt any connection to the terrorists. Not even based on shared humanity, much less ethnicity. Indeed, I’m sad we got rid of the lady who was mowing them down in Bangladesh.
by rayiner
5/20/2026 at 11:20:08 AM
The world will surely be a better place when everyone you hate is executed without trial I guess.by UncleMeat
5/20/2026 at 12:25:34 PM
It’s interesting I said “terrorists” and you translated that to “people I hate.” As if I have some different, unstated motivation. No, I just hate terrorists, obviously.by rayiner
5/19/2026 at 2:04:49 AM
[flagged]by rayiner
5/19/2026 at 2:50:08 AM
Search Dan's comments for "advocating violence".by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 6:37:48 AM
[flagged]by rayiner
5/18/2026 at 7:35:10 PM
How does it seem that Radley is talking past Gary?All discussion of the 'Misrepresentations' article is responsive to Gary's mention of it in the original article. And at no point does Radley appear to endorse its contents.
by xKingfisher
5/18/2026 at 8:02:47 PM
Can you elaborate on "basic competency issues", either in the case of Boudin's office and/or other high profile reformist prosecutors? Is that just a polite way of calling them dumb, à la what the kids are calling a 'skill issue' nowadays?by nickburns
5/18/2026 at 8:50:46 PM
I can speak at length to the tenure of Kim Foxx, Chicago's former high-profile progressive prosecutor. I know some of the issues rhyme with Boudin's term, but San Franciscans can tell his story better than I can.So, first, no, I feel like I'm saying the opposite of "they're dumb". I don't think either Foxx or Boudin are dumb. I think they're both interesting people with interesting and valuable views.
When I say "basic competence issues", I'm talking about the kinds of things that would go wrong if, like, you or I took over the CCSAO and started managing all the prosecutions in Cook County. For instance: having huge numbers of line prosecutors resign, in part because you totally fuck up the promotion ladder, in part because you shift staffing priorities away from line prosecution and towards internal policy positions, and in part because you fail to sell your immediate-term vision for how you're going to manage the agency.
The superficial way to look at veteran prosecutors resigning is that they're no longer culture fits, which you can look at as a good thing: Boudin and Foxx were hired to change those cultures. But a more practical and immediate way to look at them is that losing veterans puts the screws on your ability to execute the day-to-day of the agency. These prosecutor offices were incredibly strained before people like Boudin and Foxx got there. Which means: there was already an extent to which prosecution decisions were being made not just on justice, safety, or public policy more broadly, but simply on a triage basis.
When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions. Foxx tried to put a brave face on it, but nobody was buying it.
What's more frustrating is that Foxx was doing this at the same time as Illinois was rolling out SAFE-T, which ended cash bail in Illinois. I am wholeheartedly in favor of SAFE-T, and I think by-default cash bail is an idiotic system that unnecessarily amplifies the societal cost of law enforcement. But SAFE-T was ultra-controversial in Chicagoland, and Foxx went through all this stuff while people were freaking out daily about catch-and-release. It didn't help that all of this coincided with a huge regional increase in carjackings, the second most important urban index crime after murder. It further didn't help that she was accused of refusing to prosecute juvenile carjackers, and that when confronted by reporters about that, she didn't have a clear denial.
I hope this reads as I intend it to, which is: not ideological, just an assessment about whether someone is prepared to step in and run the office, most of which is boring and just needs to be done correctly.
(I think you can probably look at Krasner as an example of a prosecutor who has avoided these traps.)
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 9:18:27 PM
We almost certainly have opposing ideological views, but something I said a lot during this era (that I'm happy to see you hinting at) was that if you come into office as a progressive prosecutor without any plan to deal with the people in your office or in law enforcement who aren't on board, then that's really the more immediate failure. You can't just say, "I would have been successful if not for my detractors," because the detractors are a totally predictable obstacle for which you need a plan.In big systems you can't always just do whatever you want!
by dionidium
5/18/2026 at 11:07:48 PM
To some degree there simply isn't any plan you can have beyond that in the short term things will suck and hopefully the long term benefits will be worth it. If the existing incumbents are sufficiently ideologically opposed to your goals that they'll refuse to work rather than let you even inch towards them, there's not much you can do beyond try to replace them with people who don't have the relevant experience but are willing to work with you."Defund the police" didn't poll well so the progressive prosecutors who actually got elected were the ones who didn't admit that they were going to have to tear things down and start over (and maybe they didn't even realize it), but it was a very unsurprising outcome.
by plorkyeran
5/19/2026 at 11:07:08 AM
So it's not enough to say that the progressive ideology is a bad plan in that environment? You said it yourself, there isn't any plan. What happens in complicated high risk situations when there is no plan? You end up with bad results, which is a result of the failed ideology.by wallst07
5/18/2026 at 11:23:54 PM
Prosecutors have no agency over police funding.by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 9:23:14 PM
I mean, you have basically no control over law enforcement if they decide to arbitrarily slow down arrests or protest your leadership. This has been one of the more consistent issues in American politics and you can see it when the police union doesn't get their way they have a huge tantrum and make things worse for everyone involved.This isn't really a statement on Boudin did or did not do since I don't have that knowledge but rather from separate experience seeing law enforcement shit itself during other elections.
by fzeroracer
5/19/2026 at 11:10:47 AM
The flip side I've heard is that LE doesn't arbitrarily slow down arrests due to a difference in ideology. It seems more simple than that. Who wants to go through the effort of making arrests if the DA is letting them free. The LEO will see them commit the same event the next day. I don't think anyone would want that in their day to day job, much less law & order.It's like writing a PR/MR every day [by hand] and having it declined every day, eventually you stop.
by wallst07
5/19/2026 at 5:56:46 PM
Maybe so, but the difference is that my job is my job; if I don't do my job I get fired. If the police don't do their job they get rewarded with more funding because people see the effect and not the cause.You could make the argument that it discourages them from making the effort, but they're still getting paid and supported by my tax dollars and so should do their damn job.
by fzeroracer
5/18/2026 at 9:57:42 PM
-- When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions.Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! God so many people don't "get" this. Engineering leaders that come in and create and exodus of senior leaders, same thing. I started calling it organizational momentum. The speed at which you get things done, goes up as the organization gets to understand itself. A bunch of key people leave and BAM momentum goes to zero and suddenly all the milestones you are missing are putting all the wrong pressure on the org to get moving again.
by ChuckMcM
5/18/2026 at 9:01:49 PM
> prosecution decisions were being made not just on justice, safety, or public policy more broadly, but simply on a triage basis.> When you start losing significant numbers of people, you lose the ability to set your own execution priorities; circumstances are making prosecutorial decisions. Foxx tried to put a brave face on it, but nobody was buying it.
So, circumstances were making prosecutorial decisions, and the new DA efforts to make fundamental changes did not fix those circumstances, and therefore all changes they made were considered to cause that state.
The office wasn't running. It is not the fault of the new guy that it keeps not running.
by lazyasciiart
5/18/2026 at 9:08:05 PM
If you assume office and things get worse, that is in fact on you! I'm not saying Foxx's predecessor was good; Foxx's predecessor was Anita Alvarez, who was herself a trainwreck in the opposite direction.A problem I see all the time in these kinds of public policy debates is that people have ideological rooting interests. That isn't going to get you anywhere in a debate about a major metro prosecutor's office. You can't project out "this person was progressive therefore they were good" and you can't do "this person is a law-and-order tough-on-crime prosecutor so they're good" either. It's a very difficult job. Notably: I think you'd have a hard time finding credible people who believe Foxx did a good job in her office.
by tptacek
5/20/2026 at 2:29:27 AM
A problem I see all the time is that you are responding to a hell of a lot that I didn’t say.by lazyasciiart
5/19/2026 at 4:40:28 PM
The office was running. Not in a way the voters wanted but they were competent in accomplishing their goals. Then the new DA was elected and tons of people left and now the office isn’t running.by HDThoreaun
5/20/2026 at 2:28:07 AM
That is not my understanding.by lazyasciiart
5/19/2026 at 9:05:05 AM
Yeah people think government is like, you elect people and they get a turn at the wheel. But all the people you could elect aren't equally experienced or competent drivers, and the car doesn't suit them all equally (this is simple systems theory, either your government is highly tailored towards--say--centrists running it and thus is very efficient, or anyone on any part of the political spectrum could run it but it's significantly less efficient).Or like, in your example (to be clear I defer to you entirely on the facts), not only would Foxx have to be a competent State's Attorney, she'd have to be competent at changing a system that's not ideal for her into one that is, e.g. by persuading existing staff, hiring new staff, etc.
This is by no means impossible--it's called leadership. My hot take, more or less, is that if you get someone into office who shares your values but can't make the office execute those values, not only will you fail but you'll tarnish your political movement for... a good long time, so competence is actually more important than values alignment.
My even hotter take is that people used to know this. When people from minority groups or political persuasions got power (women, LGBTQ people, racial/ethnic/religious minorities, ideological/philosophical minorities, etc) they knew they were modeling for everyone in their group. Is it fair? No. Is it reality. Super yes! Is whining about unfairness good politics and/or attractive at all? Super no!
by camgunz
5/18/2026 at 9:51:58 PM
> the second most important urban index crime after murderCan you comment on why this is? Is it because it's common? Or so visibly impactful?
by JumpCrisscross
5/18/2026 at 10:10:08 PM
Carjacking is a subset of motor vehicle theft, which is an index crime, but carjacking commands more public attention than anything except for murder; this is a vibes-based assertion but I feel like I could back it up easily.Importantly: the carjacking wave wasn't Foxx's fault (it was in fact Kia's fault). She was in an incredibly tough position --- she also had to deal with Chicagoland police departments that have not covered themselves in glory over the last 20 years. But she didn't rise to the challenge.
by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 1:09:26 AM
How is carjacking Kia’s fault? Kia had a problem with immobilizer anti-theft devices not being installed plus a well documented trivial way to “Hotwire” certain models. This would simply be car theft. It was a well documented (via social media) technique that lowered the skill level needed to steal a car to basically the ability to sit through a 30s TikTok.Is it that it’s a “gateway crime” to full on carjacking? You get away with a few joy rides in a Kia and get bold enough to do an armed carjacking of someone’s SUV while they load their kids up in the alley garage?
Carjacking is up there with murder for “scary” urban crime because it’s violent and anyone can imagine being a victim. Having your car stolen off the street overnight doesn’t really elicit the same visceral response.
Add in the CPDs general “no chase” policy (mostly a good thing for harm reduction) plus a bunch of largely juveniles posting on social media the dangerous driving stunts they were pulling on social media to really amp up the fear and outrage. Even if it were mostly for show, no prosecutor is going to survive an election if they come across as soft on that style of crime.
by phil21
5/19/2026 at 1:48:52 AM
Carjacking relies on burner cars; they drive up near victims, 2 people get out and rush the car, and then both cars speed off. Carjackers (at least in Chicagoland) don't generally post up in parking lots waiting for victims; they're highly mobile.(I have two carjackings on camera from behind my old house, where we had a Nest camera. One thing I learned from that: anybody who thinks carrying a firearm is a realistic defense against a carjacking is in fantasyland. You don't get even a split second to react; the encounter begins with a gun in your face.)
No-chase is absolutely the right policy for a dense urban area. Every once in awhile where I live we get trustee candidates promising to bring chases back, and I have to wonder what they're smoking.
by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 2:51:34 AM
> Carjacking relies on burner cars; they drive up near victims, 2 people get out and rush the car, and then both cars speed offOh, I misunderstood the term. I thought you meant randos who steal cars.
This strikes me as the sort of violent crime that should be aggressively followed and punished.
> No-chase is absolutely the right policy for a dense urban area
Drones?
by JumpCrisscross
5/19/2026 at 4:32:50 AM
To avoid double-posting, replying here.> Carjacking relies on burner cars; they drive up near victims, 2 people get out and rush the car, and then both cars speed off
Ah yeah, I forgot about this part. Makes sense. I also happen to have two (well, 1.5 - only caught the drive-away for one of them as the actual carjacking happened down the block) carjackings on my home cameras in the immediate post-COVID era. It happened in a similar manner here in one of the "very safe" neighborhoods of Chicago with burner cars. One of the burners was another stolen Mercedes - so I guess it's likely turtles all the way down until a KIA.
> Drones?
We have giant human-operated ones here in Chicago (helicopters) with at least one in the air seemingly all the time (according to my desktop ADS-B display). These coupled with the various traffic cameras spread all around seem to do a fairly effective job of tracking a stolen car if the police care enough to respond in time. Of course it's limited in the number of "chases" and available manpower.
Not sure why drones haven't made more of an entrance to this space. I think partly police union/labor issues, and partly the size of a drone needed to be useful enough (station keeping and response time) for the task would tend to look at lot like military surveillance drones. I vaguely remember some noise about about CPD trialing something like this, or it could have simply been "partnering" with Federal agencies during various recent protest activity. These are MQ-9 Reapers and similar drones in the class and they have been deployed over the city in recent memory.
I'm not sure giving CPD that capability is a great idea overall. If they end up having one or two drones in the sky 24x7 as a matter of course, surveillance concerns and abuse opportunities multiply. At least with the helicopters there is a large manpower and financial cost involved, and it's usually very obvious when one is deployed in your area due to noise.
by phil21
5/19/2026 at 11:17:53 AM
I still fail to see how carjacking rates are Kia's fault. I mean, Did carjackings increase everywhere relative to the % of kia's on the road in every area (urban and rural)?by wallst07
5/19/2026 at 4:43:38 PM
Carjacking increased a lot in Chicago, seriously a huge amount, when TikTok started showing people how to steal Kia’s. It really wasn’t an issue at all until thenby HDThoreaun
5/19/2026 at 1:14:25 AM
> the carjacking wave wasn't Foxx's fault (it was in fact Kia's fault)I leave my keys in my car and don’t lock my front door. That isn’t because of the local prosecutor. But it’s not to their demerit. If my car were stolen, I’d still expect them to at least do some work.
by JumpCrisscross
5/19/2026 at 4:48:04 PM
I think it might be because you live in an area that has created zoning laws that make it impossible for non rich people to sleep anywhere within an hour and a half of you. You live in Jackson hole right?by HDThoreaun
5/19/2026 at 1:51:15 AM
I think a lot of the cars actually get recovered? It's a pretty fucked up situation; 16-22-year-olds seem pretty clearly to be doing it for sport.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 6:15:29 AM
> 16-22-year-olds seem pretty clearly to be doing it for sportIf they’re getting away with it, with YouTube views to boot, it is* sport.
by JumpCrisscross
5/19/2026 at 1:29:32 PM
Carjacking is when somebody opens your door at a stoplight, points a gun at you, and tells you to get out of the car. Are you instead referring to vehicle theft in general? How is this Kia's fault?by UncleMeat
5/19/2026 at 3:48:54 PM
Answered elsewhere on the thread.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 1:33:23 AM
O'Neill Burke is no more competent than Kim Foxx, and is a member of an Illinois crime family, but she has the support of the carceral state including the FOP. The reality is that Foxx's tenure coincided with (and partially caused) an effective strike/work stoppage by the police in Chicago.How do you as an elected official change the culture of a rotten institution, that the public wants reformed but is engaged in vital public service who can simply stop doing the work if you piss them off?
I don't know. I feel like so many of our institutions are rotten these days and attempt at reform are sabotaged and/or cause backlashes.
by jordanb
5/19/2026 at 1:47:18 AM
Make small, incremental changes in the correct direction that will face minimal internal resistance?A lot of people want everything, immediately, and seem to believe maximalist approaches are no more politically dangerous than more incrementalist ones. They're wrong: prioritization is a thing, and pragmatism and realism about what you can accomplish isn't a sign of selling out but of wanting to be an effective agent of change.
And once you succeed at the first tranche of easier wins, you've built up the trust, skills, and political capital to take on the second tranche. Rinse and repeat.
by scarmig
5/19/2026 at 6:25:25 AM
That works only with honest opponents and that is not situation the world is in.Successfull minimalist beneficient reforms will be maligned as much as possible, to prevent subsequent beneficient reforms. Simple as that.
by watwut
5/19/2026 at 1:46:14 AM
If you're suggesting she's related to Ed Burke, no, she isn't. But I'm also not here to argue that EOB is doing a great job. I'm telling you why Foxx is widely viewed as a failure, including by reformists.Lots of organizations are riven with corruption (exhibit A: every fire department). Doesn't mean you can fuck them up, at least not if you want to matter in public policy for long. This is a difference between message boards and reality.
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 9:07:47 PM
I enjoyed this long post about how changing the culture in a DA’s office is bad and should not be attemptedby jrflowers
5/18/2026 at 9:08:23 PM
Because that's definitely what I said.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 6:00:50 AM
Well, yeah>The superficial way to look at veteran prosecutors resigning is that they're no longer culture fits, which you can look at as a good thing: Boudin and Foxx were hired to change those cultures. But a more practical and immediate way to look at them is that losing veterans puts the screws on your ability to execute the day-to-day of the agency.
Your whole point is (aside from Chicago and San Francisco being interchangeable to the extent that Kim Foxx and Chesa Boudin are functionally the same person) “if you don’t keep your ideological detractors happy and employed then you’re doing a bad job.” That’s just another way of saying that culture change isn’t feasible
by jrflowers
5/19/2026 at 9:08:11 AM
No he's saying that realistically it's a challenge you have to accept if your success depends on culture change.by camgunz
5/19/2026 at 9:46:55 AM
Where did he write about success?by jrflowers
5/19/2026 at 11:23:48 AM
It read to me like a post mortem on why she failed [opposite of success]. She failed because she was bad at changing the culture which is a core competency of leadership. It doesn't really matter what the people think one way or another, the job of a leader is to lead, "win hearts and minds"This seems pretty self evident.
by wallst07
5/18/2026 at 7:36:26 PM
The main HIPAA claim seems to be that the victim didn’t provide (or consent to the publication of) that X-ray, and neither did their only family member known to possess it. I don’t know who released it, but if it was someone in the medical office, that is a genuine HIPAA violation.by rafram
5/18/2026 at 7:50:03 PM
It could be a violation at the medical office, but Lim isn't a covered entity, and the document accuses her directly.by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 8:57:47 PM
HIPAA only covers entities that are legally required to follow it. Covered entities and business associates. It doesn’t apply to anyone else.by adrr
5/18/2026 at 10:20:56 PM
> I'd be foursquare behind a progressive prosecutor in a major city that ran a tight shipStrongly inclined to hire such a prosecutor. Has this model been successfully deployed in any large U.S. cities? My only experience is watching it struggle in a medium one.
On your last point: given the ethical responsibility of a prosecutor, I’d go one step further. If you’re the prosecutor for a jurisdiction where a journalist works, and you make any statement about the legality of the journalists works, you better be substantially likely to secure a conviction, otherwise you should mind your business.
by singleshot_
5/18/2026 at 10:23:38 PM
Yes. It is a weird document. Journalists are unfair to prosecutors and police chiefs all the time. Shut up and do the job.(I have feelings here because we're in a mini-spat between our PD and our terrible local newspaper, which is upset that our chief won't give them an interview after the local police union gave her a no-confidence vote; where I live, that vote is, reasonably, viewed as a sign she's doing the job well. But either way: she's not going to give an interview on this!)
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 7:42:54 PM
> The Chesa Boudin DA "misrepresentations" document, linked towards the end of this story, is weak, bordering on Trumpian.Are we reading the same document?
The first example is almost a perfect example of what's stated in TFA. Lim is incredibly aggressive in making her argument, and not an argument based on real evidence.
Scanning through the rest, it reads as much the same.
Direct gdrive link for those who don't want to go back and scroll through the article again: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VZKYxe0oGq7HeC5Kj2lxf-X55r4...
edit:
> At one point it accuses Lim of "violating HIPAA", which is not a thing† (HIPAA constrains covered entities, not reporters).
Ehhhhh. I diagree with that reading. There's a clarification bullet point two lines down from the headline bullet (page 3). Emphasis mine.
> This suggests Ms. Lim was received a patient’s privileged medical records from another unauthorized source in violation of HIPAA.
I read this as the unauthorized source is violating HIPAA. But I guess neither of us are lawyers. So...
by dijksterhuis
5/18/2026 at 8:45:40 PM
> Direct gdrive linkI'm confused where this came from. I cannot find this link in the original article as submitted:
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/truth-power-and-honest-jo...
The most I can find is "But I found another place where someone has posted all 81 pages. It’s here. Feel free to look them over."
Where "here" links to:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21011168-responsive-...
That is the 81 page PDF referred to multiple times in the article and is titled "Responsive Records Lim - Balko correspondence_Redacted". I don't see "HIPAA" appear in it anywhere. Toward the end of that document on page 69 is a screenshot of a text that includes a Word attachment titled "Dion Lim Misrepresentati...". After that are screenshots that are excerpts of the gdrive document that you linked, but the HIPAA accusation is not in any of those screenshotted excerpts.
So how did tptacek even come across the HIPAA accusation, and how did you find the document that you linked that contains it?
Edit: ah, it's linked from this sentence "But in the interest of transparency, I’m posting it as well. You can read it here." where "here"[^1] links to the gdrive document.
Sheesh.
[^1]: Pet peeve - you've failed HTML 101 if you use "here" as a link. A few sentences earlier in that paragraph is the text that should've been the link text: 'the “Dion Lim Misrepresentations” document that Tan mentions in his post'.
by js2
5/18/2026 at 8:07:37 PM
That's an extremely charitable read of a DA's office alleging lawbreaking. I really think you have to kind of slant your head and squint to come away with the impression that that section isn't about Lim, but rather the unnamed medical office.by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 8:37:54 PM
A. That's how I read it too. B. You can be criminally liable for HIPAA violations, if you induce someone covered by them to violate them. See for example https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/media/1254226/dl (indictment of KEITH RITSON)"COUNT 2 (Conspiracy to Wrongfully Obtain and Disclose Individually Identifiable Health Information) 19. Paragraphs 1-3 and 5-18 of Count 1 of this Superseding Information are hereby realleged and incorporated as though set forth in full herein. 20. At all times relevant to this Superseding Information: a. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) protects individually identifiable health information from wrongful disclosure or obtainment and seeks to set national standards to maintain patient confidentiality. b. In connection with HIPAA, the United States Department of Health and Human Services enacted regulations to safeguard the privacy of patients’ medical records and limit circumstances in which individually identifiable health information or protected health information can be used or disclosed. The HIPAA law and privacy regulations apply to, among others, health care providers, such as medical doctors, who transmit health information in connection with a transaction covered by the law and privacy regulations. c. Frank Alario, who is listed as a co-conspirator with respect to Count 2 of this Superseding Information but not as a defendant herein, was a health care provider and a covered entity under the HIPAA law and privacy regulations.
21. From in or about August 2014 through in or about February 2016, in the District of New Jersey, and elsewhere, defendant KEITH RITSON did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with Frank Alario and others to commit offenses against the United States, that is, to knowingly and without authorization obtain individually identifiable health information and protected health information to another person, and to knowingly and without authorization disclose individually identifiable health information and protected health information maintained by a covered entity relating to individuals, contrary to Title 42, United States Code, Section 1320d-6."
by phonon
5/18/2026 at 8:55:21 PM
Is there a fact pattern where Lim could have bank-shot criminal liability despite not herself being a covered entity? Probably? She could have misrepresented who she was and obtained the records through fraud, for instance. Again, my thing here is, if you're going to put those kinds of accusations on the table, and you're a district attorney, you'd better come correct. The facts presented in the document the DA's office shared are not sufficient to allege wrongdoing by Lim.by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 9:20:55 PM
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-6Here 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 :-)
by phonon
5/18/2026 at 9:29:20 PM
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).
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 10:05:11 PM
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.by phonon
5/19/2026 at 6:20:33 AM
It's strange to find myself so clearly on the side of tctapek here but yes it is super unreasonable for a district attorneys office to accuse reporters of things without a solid set of facts supporting it. There should be absolutely no abuse of the power of the office and of every official, the lawyers should be most likely to get this right.A functioning justice system MATTERS and being trustworthy is one of the core requirements for a functioning justice system.
by collingreen
5/19/2026 at 11:50:33 PM
I somewhat agree that the whole document is sloppy, but I also think this conversation overemphasizes what is wrong with it. It is not as if the document simply accuses the journalist and leaves it there; it actually elaborates on what it means by “violated HIPAA” in that context (and please don’t make me start comparing it with current administration behavior).There is also a broader question of how to properly handle what are, quite honestly, likely bad-faith actors — the journalist in this case. Should the office simply ignore the smearing campaign and the lies? Maybe. But this is already an issue even before accounting for the significant amount of money — pushed by a very small number of people — being spent against the attorney’s office.
by boroboro4
5/21/2026 at 2:40:27 PM
OP didn't say the office should ignore lies or libel. OP said the attorney general should be very sure before making severe accusations against the press.I think both are right - shouldn't ignore crime and should be responsible in addressing it.
by collingreen
5/18/2026 at 10:11:02 PM
Yes it is. And when it's a prosecutor saying that, doubly so.by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 8:12:41 PM
As i said, neither of us is lawyers. Neither of us are experts in what a DA's office has written, and what that writing should be interpreted as under the law. Perhaps a more charitable reading is what is called for, given we're not experts in the domain.i don't know about you, but i'm pretty confident a DA's office has a much better idea than me about what each of the HIPAA sentences in the document translate to in terms of "allegations".
by dijksterhuis
5/18/2026 at 8:25:10 PM
The question you're raising isn't a legal one, at least as I understand it. I read you to be saying "the reasonable take on this document is that they are saying SOMEONE violated HIPAA, but not Lim".That's a question about messaging, not the law.
by tptacek
5/18/2026 at 8:41:57 PM
i didn't raise the legal point.> † btw: if you're the DA for a jurisdiction that includes a reporter, and you claim the reporter's journalism is unlawful, you sure as shit better have that right.
> That's an extremely charitable read of a DA's office alleging lawbreaking.
you seem to be inferring that the DA has made an allegation of unlawful acts, and that there could be consequences for that allegation. that sort of thing often entails "legal stuff". courts and judges stuff. hence, my spiel on "we are not lawyers".
i believe you stated an *uncharitable* take on the bullet points in the document. my point is that there is another reading. one where the benefit of the doubt is given to the relative experts in law. a sibling in the thread seems to agree that *a* violation occurred, not directly implicating Lim, which implies that they may have read it a similar way to my *charitable* take.
by dijksterhuis
5/19/2026 at 6:09:43 AM
Violating HIPAA rights and “violating HIPAA” aren’t the same thing. The rights granted by HIPAA are universal, everybody’s got them and anybody can violate them, it’s just that healthcare professionals are bound to not do that. You could violate my HIPAA “rights” all day and not get in trouble, because the law around protecting those rights does not apply to you. I could still write in a memo that the associated behavior is a dick move or a troubling issue with your character and ethics though.Anyway, possibly poorly-worded title aside, it is made clear that Lim was receiving information from someone that clearly was violating HIPAA laws.
Here is the text:
Dion Lim Violates HIPAA Rights of a Victim of Violence & Invades Her Privacy
• Dion Lim released an x-ray of the victim of a stabbing—without the victim’s permission, in a clear violation of the victim’s HIPAA and privacy rights.
o She claimed online that she had her grandson’s permission, but there is no indication he was authorized to grant consent on her behalf—and he was not the one to provide the photo, which she made clear in a tweet explaining she showed the x-ray to him, “and explained the decision to share it” as part of pressure to ensure the case was prosecuted.
▪ This suggests Ms. Lim was received a patient’s privileged medical records from another unauthorized source in violation of HIPAA.
• In connection with that same case, Ms. Lim posted video of the brutal stabbing.
o Despite the DA’s Office’s press release referencing the victim’s request for privacy (which was reiterated at the May 7, 2021 press conference in which Ms. Lim was present), she has not taken down this post.
> This suggests Ms. Lim was received a patient’s privileged medical records from another unauthorized source in violation of HIPAA.
The only way to read that sentence as an accusation of Lim violating HIPAA would be to read it and conclude that she was both “an unauthorized source in violation of HIPAA” and also the reporter that the unauthorized source shared the information with (in violation of HIPAA, the law)
Calling the whole document “Trumpian” is kind of extreme when the criticism is “There’s an ambiguous phrase in it and I will not be addressing the clarifying language a couple sentences away from it” or “I think this lawyer meant ‘statutes’ when he wrote ‘rights’ which I imagine makes him wrong”
by jrflowers
5/19/2026 at 3:56:35 PM
There's a whole subthread that already covered this ground. The passage obviously implicates Lim --- the subject of the entire document --- a reporter, in lawbreaking, without alleging facts sufficient to establish that liability, and was written by the DA's office. When Trump's DOJ does this sort of thing, we all (rightly) freak the fuck out.by tptacek
5/19/2026 at 11:57:44 PM
DOJ puts an accusation with clarifying text in semi private document? They don’t do this, they do much worse things (and get, rightly, much worse response).This document isn’t great, but comparing it to Trump administration actions isn’t great either. As well as focusing on it rather than on a substance of the article in question (which is, about Garry Tan accusations in a first place).
Thank you for your comment though it made me go back and reread the linked text more critically.
by boroboro4
5/18/2026 at 9:37:31 PM
> I've watched outsider-y progressives get elected into prosecutor roles and then fail their constituenciesPolitical achievement via moral/ethical/legal means does not work. We expect a single person with extremely limited power to assume a relatively minor position in government, then somehow defeat incredibly wealthy organized opponents, in addition to solving complex logistical and social issues, and to do all that without ever doing anything wrong? It's nearly impossible. Progressives need to return to the good old days of corruption and coercion if they want to get anything done.
by 0xbadcafebee
5/18/2026 at 9:49:28 PM
> then somehow defeat incredibly wealthy organized opponents, in addition to solving complex logistical and social issues, and to do all that without ever doing anything wrong?No, we expect them to do like one thing right without bungling the basics. The track record of the pre-pandemic era wave of progressive prosecutors was some combination of doing absolutely jack shit in the first category and/or being asked for table stakes on the latter and swallowing their chips.
by JumpCrisscross