Also: hire people who don't live in the DC beltway.

This goes for . . . well, how about most federal IT-related jobs.

The US intelligence community is very successful attracting extremely talented folks.

It’s funny that you mention Israel. The would be one of the worst “allies” to partner with. Jonathan Pollard was just given a hero’s welcome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

Step 1 sounds personal

It sounds like it, and it might be, but testing for weed really does impact recruiting. I know of a very large US firm that has quietly stopped including it in their drug test over the past 3-4 years in part because of that.

(I wouldn’t be surprised if folks start to push testing as a HIPAA issue.)

That's not how HIPAA works.

I'm no expert but it could place you in a situation where you are faced with divulging a legal* medical prescription as a condition of keeping your job.

That has nothing to do with HIPAA, your employer is in almost all cases not a covered entity. People frequently believe that they have a right not to have to disclose health information to their employer; this is true in certain cases but by and large is false. There are explicit provisions in HIPAA saying that requiring doctors notes is legal, for example.

Also, intelligence agency requests are exempt from HIPAA. They can ask your provider for whatever they want, and your provider can give it to them with no penalty.

The few I asked seemed to feel they were _required_ to provide information if simply asked without a court order backing up the request. And they made it seem like I was the crazy one for asking that they agree to only provide my data if legally compelled. I ended up doing direct billing out of principle.

Good info! Thank you for clearing that up for me.

It does if you can claim it’s medical use only. Or at least it reasonably could be interpreted that way.

HIPAA applies exclusively to covered entities. Your employer is, in most cases, not a covered entity. If you want evidence of this (assuming you're in the United States) go look at the information required by your employers FMLA disclosure form.

Hint, the I in HIPAA stands for insurance. If insurance isn't involved, HIPAA probably isn't either.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-individuals/employers-health-i...