Per reporting via the Los Angeles Daily News, DNC darling and 2024 presidential hopeful Gov. Gavin Newsom has passed Californians’ vax status to an outfit called Street Level Strategy, apparently for the purpose of prodding “vaccine-hesitant” residents into getting vaxxed and haranguing the already-vaxxed to get boosted.
Political consulting firm Street Level Strategy, LLC, a custodian of Californians’ private medical records, bills itself as “a public affairs firm that specializes in grassroots mobilization, community organizing, digital organizing, and strategic consulting for a range of clients including Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and trade associations.”
One L.A. resident quoted in the report said, “I’m being stalked by the state of California. I just got a call from a guy who told me he has my file and he sees I got the Pfizer vaccine, but not a booster.”
Pressed for comment, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) responded that “MyTurn, the state’s vaccine appointment program launched by CDPH, shares a list of booster eligible California residents with Street Level Strategy, LLC that includes names, age, gender, ethnicity, contact information and vaccination history in order to prioritize equity, with a focus on reaching communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
(Vaguely defined “equity,” of course, being the ultimate excuse for state abuse of power, since challenging any program devoted to promoting “equity” automatically renders one a bigot.)
California taxpayers are footing the bill for Street Level Strategy’s important “equity” work that consists of contacting California residents unsolicited and harassing them to get their mRNA injections to the tune of $12.7 million — awarded, unsurprisingly, through a no-bid contract under the state’s March 4, 2020, COVID-19 emergency declaration.
If all of this sounds vaguely illegal and definitely unethical, your instincts are correct. Per the CDC, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) “is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge.” The spirit of the law, and likely the letter as well, has clearly been violated here.
Related: Gavin Newsom’s $98 Billion Surplus Went Bye-Bye
Newsom’s shady deal with Street Level Strategy isn’t the only dubious arrangement to come out of the COVID era in California, either. Per reporting by the LA Times, in 2021, “COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer Inc. gave $250,000 on behalf of the governor to a nonprofit providing trailers to house families in need of shelter during the pandemic.” And various other pharmaceutical and medical industry corporate donors have recently made sizeable donations on Newsom’s behalf.
Street Level Strategy’s actions — and Newsom’s administration — are certainly worthy of further scrutiny, ideally under oath before a GOP-controlled House committee in the upcoming new Congressional session.
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