Friday, July 24, 2015

VA Sends Veterans’ Medical Info To FBI To Get Their Guns Taken Away


OFF THE WIRE

Patrick Howley
Documents obtained by The Daily Caller and interviews with American veterans reveal a shocking government program: The Department of Veterans Affairs is disarming America’s veterans by getting them placed on the FBI’s criminal background-check list.
The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids.
Veterans deemed mentally incompetent or financially incapable are finally speaking out about the errors in the system and the fearful harassment they and their families face from the federal government. And it all starts when vets go to the VA to get medical help.
Here’s what we know:
Documents obtained by The Daily Caller and interviews with American veterans reveal a shocking government program: The Department of Veterans Affairs is disarming America’s veterans by getting them placed on the FBI’s criminal background-check list.
The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids.
Veterans deemed mentally incompetent or financially incapable are finally speaking out about the errors in the system and the fearful harassment they and their families face from the federal government. And it all starts when vets go to the VA to get medical help.
Here’s what we know:

VA medical information is used to block veterans from possessing firearms:
The Daily Caller obtained a “MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION REGARDING THE NATIONAL INSTANT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM.”
The document, dated Feb. 27, 2012, makes clear the VA must send health information to the FBI for its gun background-check database.
“VA will provide an encrypted compact disc exchanged via mail to the FBI no less than quarterly for, inter alia, inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS),” the memo reads.
The memo defines the NICS database as a list of “persons prohibited under federal law from receiving or possessing firearms.”
“Data disclosed by VA to the FBI under the terms of this agreement is to be entered into the NICS Index…”