By: John Hayward
There’s nothing funnier than watching an ObamaCare apologist describe it as a “law,” usually in a tone of high dudgeon that any treasonous saboteurs would even dare think of repealing it. It should be obvious to even the dimmest left-wing partisan by now that ObamaCare is not a “law,” but of course that doesn’t bother them, because they don’t think their beloved all-wise all-knowing super-government should be bound by laws. The will of our benevolent aristocracy should not be thwarted by the sort of legal speed bumps, tar pits, and bear traps that routinely impose trillions of dollars in cost upon private industry. Not even the dusty old Constitution should be an obstacle when a duly credentialed Great Man or Woman of the Left has a really swell idea that would benefit society.
For example, in the assessment of Charles C. Johnson at the Daily Caller, the bug-riddled ObamaCare website stands in direct violation of federal laws that require government agencies to ensure the safety of citizens’ confidential data. It’s a fairly open-and-shut case:
Under the the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), the Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is required to have an “Authority to Operate,” or ATO. In order to receive an ATO, new information tech systems must perform a set of tests, including “Security Control Assessments” (SCA).
But according to CMS’s 2014 budget request, no such security assessment took place. The Federal Healthcare Marketplace website was rolled out without full end-to-end testing.
Indeed, the large number of new systems created because of Obamacare created a backlog of testing. CMS could not complete its required security. Failing to complete the required means no ATO, and hence a violation of federal law under FISMA.
We all know that a private operation which violated such a regulation would be facing painful legal consequences, including the sort of huge fines that would probably lead angry stockholders to demand a few executive scalps.