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False Information A-Okay in Primary FBI Database 443

Posted by michael from the hanging-judge dept.
blamanj writes "The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which compiles a huge database on criminals, arrest warrants, missing persons, etc., no longer has to put up with the pesky problem of ensuring the data is accurate. I guess the Justice Department isn't particularly concerned with justice anymore." The full text of the provision which the main FBI criminal database will no longer have to adhere to is: "Each agency that maintains a system of records shall ... maintain all records which are used by the agency in making any determination about any individual with such accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to the individual in the determination."
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False Information A-Okay in Primary FBI Database More

False Information A-Okay in Primary FBI Database

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  • Data accuracy (Score:5, Funny)

    by YellowElectricRat ( 637662 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:35AM (#5596414) Journal
    If they're not worried about accuracy, they'll save millions by simply using a very large MS Access database!

  • How does the saying go? (Score:5, Funny)

    by LucidBeast ( 601749 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:35AM (#5596418)
    I would rather imprison hundred innocents than let one guilty go free.
    • Perhaps we should just randomly start shooting people because they might be guilty. Opps! Never mind, we are already doing that. I'm so behind the times.
      • Goverment passes more and more laws until everyone is a criminal. Then they can lock up anyone for any reason at any time. After a while, the people revolt or move.

        Just wait and see, US is no different.

    • Re:How does the saying go? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cyril3 ( 522783 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:18AM (#5596574)
      If they are dumb enough to put 100 innocents in jail why would you think they will be smart enough to find the guilty one in the first place. But that will be about the ratio I suspect.

      In any case dimwit they wouldn't be imprisoned. They would be thrown out of jobs, possibly deported after having their citizenship revoked, very probably taken to Camp X-Ray and interrogated for a year or so then dropped off in the middle of cairo dressed in a tutu and boa with a sign nailed to their back saying "I'd rather fuck a camel but you'll do big boy".

      And meanwhile the terrorist is quietly learning the next in a set of skills designed to rain death on your head.

      No-one deserves to die but I keep finding more and more people who will not be missed.

      • Re:How does the saying go? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ratamacue ( 593855 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:58AM (#5597239)
        If they are dumb enough to put 100 innocents in jail

        I think they know damn well that innocent people would go to prison. Just like they know damn well that prohibition creates violent crime (an obviously worse problem than drug use), yet they still wage their "war on drugs" against the people. Just like they know damn well that innocent people die in the electric chair (look at the number of innocents taken off death row every year), yet they still favor the death penalty. Just like they know damn well that a foreign policy based on force creates more war than it prevents, yet they still jump at the chance to invoke military force. Just like they know damn well that corporate welfare destroys market competition, yet they still love to throw our money at their corporate allies.

        No, our government leaders are not dumb. They are simply doing what serves their interest. As they saying goes: You can't rule a nation of innocents. The more criminals to arrest (or "problems to solve" in general), the more power they gain over the people.

        The solution? Limited government. Reduce the size of government, and the level of abuse will reduce proportionately.

    • Tell that to the states with a death penalty.

  • Liability (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seems perfectly clear that to make a single person or organization responsible for the information in the database would leave them open for lawsuits when people were wrongly accused, denied employment, etc. This way, when a lawsuit gets filed, everyone points fingers at everyone else... It's an interesting idea that arises anytime groups colloborate (hardware people: don't look at us; it's the fault of the software people... software people: don't look at us; it's the fault of the hardware people...

  • Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:39AM (#5596438)

    has anyone else noticed that while liberties in many other places in the world is on the rise, Liberties at home seem to be more and more restricted and monitored? How can we free other peoples and nations when we can't even free ourselves?

    • It's not just here (Score:3, Informative)

      by adamsc ( 985 )
      There have been a number of legal reviews which have concluded that the Europeans are keeping pace with the US on that front. The situation is actually worse in like England where any right can be revoked by the current government - at least in the US you at least have the hope of getting something truly egregious thrown out as unconstitutional.

      Speaking of which, it's probably time to start planning for some protracted legal battles cleaning up the anti-terrorist mess.
    • The assumption you are making is,that it is American
      foreign policy to liberate other nations. Outside of the United States this is not generally an accepted view of how things happen.

      As is the case currently the United States will certainly liberate the Iraqi oil, and in doing so it might install a democracy and liberate the Iraqi people, but I see this as an incidental event.

      Not an anti-war rant, just a differing opinion. Respond with comments not moderation.

      • The assumption you are making is,that it is American foreign policy to liberate other nations. Outside of the United States this is not generally an accepted view of how things happen.

        As is the case currently the United States will certainly liberate the Iraqi oil, and in doing so it might install a democracy and liberate the Iraqi people, but I see this as an incidental event.

        Not an anti-war rant, just a differing opinion. Respond with comments not moderation.

        Since I see individual liberty as an end

        • I do consider the assertion that the Iraqi's will get individual liberty to be a questionable one.

          Kurdish (that's the ethnic group in Northern Iraq) refugees in Germany have been holding massive anti-war demonstrations. That's right -- the oppressed people are against the war. It's not because they like Mr. Hussein -- nobody does. It's because they fear that they will have less freedoms after the war. One possible scenario, for example, is that Turkey will march into the Kurdish areas. There are alre

          • Blockquothb the poster:

            There are already massive rumours (apparently unreported in American news) that Turkey has already started moving troops into the area "for humanitarian reasons".

            Can we agree to drop the paranoid Orwellian musings about the press, at least when they're unjustified? CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times have all reported since Saturday on the rumored dispatch of Turkish troops into Kurdish-held territory. They've even dooted all the i's and memntioned the Kurdish concern that this

        • I'm just thankfull and hopefull that they will, I think the Iraqi people deserve it.

          That's assuming they actually do get it [officialspin.com].
    • No offense, but it blows my mind how relatively small the ACLU membership is. They address issues like this all the time and have a new action alert about CAPPS II [aclu.org] which is related to this. Expect something from them about this soon.

      After 9/11 it was interesting to predict what would go up more: votes for Republicans or ACLU membership. Both did, but one group is truly in need of smart, passionate people to fight crap like this. The democrats don't seem like they want to do anything critical of Bush (
      • Well, if being a "card carrying member of the ACLU" is being thrown around as an insult by people like Bush, that's not too surprising. And with the current administration, you have to worry about whether being a member of the ACLU is going to get you on some list somewhere.

        However, some conservatives seem to be coming around; see here [charlotte.com] and here [usatoday.com].

        • Well, if being a "card carrying member of the ACLU" is being thrown around as an insult by people like Bush, that's not too surprising. And with the current administration, you have to worry about whether being a member of the ACLU is going to get you on some list somewhere.

          Kinda like being a card-carrying member of the NRA or of the Armed Forces during the previous administration, eh?

          • Kinda like being a card-carrying member of the NRA or of the Armed Forces during the previous administration, eh?

            No, not like that at all. Republicans have managed to create the impression that the ACLU and "liberalism" are just barely shy of communism. Democrats haven't even tried to do the equivalent with the NRA, which would be placing it near the anarchist and fascist ends of the political spectrum; perhaps they should, though.

            As for the armed forces, Clinton was even more enamored with using the

      • I'm not a member of the ACLU because, although they work for many things I support, a large portion of their money and effort goes towards causes I don't care very much at all about, and some even goes towards causes I actively oppose.

        A few examples:
        • I generally support most access to abortion on utilitarian grounds, but disagree with most of the ACLU's rhetoric surrounding the issue ("woman's right to choose" doesn't enter into the basic philosophical question, imho -- you only have the right to choose i
    • Just a note that having information doesn't reduce ones liberties. I suspect most police "know" who the criminals are and probably go after the "usual suspects" in their area for various crimes. I don't see anything wrong with that. The only difference here is a more formal collection in that sense.

      However to lose ones liberty they must have evidence and further sufficient evidence of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. No offense, but a list of possible aggitators really doesn't affect ones liberty.

      • You are right in a sense, but consider the following:

        Those "security databases" are used to determine who gets granted or denied security clearances; who gets searched at airports, perhaps missing a flight or undergoing humiliating treatment; who gets refused entry into foreign countries...

        In short, you don't want to end up in the list of "usual suspects" just because some police clerk entered the wrong information.

        Are you sure that the FBI and other agencies will not rely on such "information" for decis
      • Blovkquoth the poster:

        that so long as you admit to what you've done it didn't matter what were in the records.

        And what if you didn't do what is listed in the records? No offense, but that's the beginning of a police state: You fear to challenge inaccuracies, because it weighs against you. Then those inaccuracies are used as leverage against you to do other things you would normally refuse, or to hold you in place. It seems like a bedrock principle that, if information is gathered under the police pow

      • Just a note that having information doesn't reduce ones liberties.

        That is roughly the same kind of reasoning that was behind communism and the Soviet Union; you see, it may make sense in theory, if everybody behaves selflessly and for the common good, but it doesn't work in practice.

        Often, being a suspect and subject of an investigation is a huge punishment and hassle in itself. Furthermore, even if the information is correct and not about criminal conduct, you may still end up being subject to blackma

  • Drat! (Score:2)

    by xpurple ( 1227 )
    That throws my plan to be a good citizen right out the window. Even a typo could make the FBI think I was a serial killer, or something.

    • Re:Drat! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Theaetetus ( 590071 )
      That throws [garbled] a good citizen right out the window. Even [garbled] the FBI [garbled] I was a serial killer [garbled]

      "See, sir? He's a serial killer, and he even admits it? Those garbled bits? Nah, we don't care about those anymore."

      ;)

      -T

  • I have some wholly inaccurate information about a lot of people (like Ashcroft, for example) that I'd love to have inserted into this database. How do I do this?

  • 1984 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by e8johan ( 605347 )
    In "1984" the big-brother society that Bush is trying to create is described. To motivate the restictions is freedoms and privacy the leaders create a never-ending war. Does any one seriously think that terror stops if you try to scare the terrorists into decent people? Terrorists are the fruits of fear and lack of influence. And since terror thus never ends (as no-body will do anything about it) the never-ending war is here.

    I thought Bush never read any books, but apparently he has been inspired by one! T

    • Amen.

      It took them a while though to clue in on terrorism, and what a friggin brilliant war machine it is. I mean civil wars in various countries like Columbia, and Turkey (in the recent past) went on forever with no real advance in either camps thanks to terrorism.

      It's like a legitimized money laundering scheme at the government level... that's what it is.

    • The premise was that in order to maintain a classist social structure, you need scarcity. The three mega-countries could produce far more goods than they could consume, meaning no scarcity, collapse of society.

      Independantly, all three devised a dictatorial police state akin to Stalinism.. This gave them a convenient way of capping the output of goods.

      A war.

      More bombs, less boots for the people. More tanks, less shaving razors for the people. That sort of thing.

      The book wasn't clear on the founding condi
    • It's a good thing that Bush contrived to start the war on 9/11. Otherwise he'd have to have been content being an anonymous caretaker president.

  • Obviously! C'mon... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by No. 24601 ( 657888 )
    why do we have to worry about justice, when it's easier to just blame it all on the terrorists.

  • 1st step in keeping databases clean (Score:5, Insightful)

    by waterbear ( 190559 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:48AM (#5596488)
    Even if they can't verify all of the information that they put in, what they could do is record whether/how a data item has any verification status (or even possibly, falsification status).

    It surprises me how often databases of information that it is vital to check for accuracy/truth/reliability just don't have any content that indicates how far, if at all, any of the main data content has actually been checked (and by whom and against what comparator). Ideally there should be an audit trail for where the data came from and who entered/checked it. Better than nothing would be some kind of indicator that this data item is either unchecked (by anybody other than the person who added it), or else has been checked as either ok, or doubtful, or not ok (and when, and who checked it).

    Terry
    • Definely. The lack of such an audit trail in Britain probably caused the big Tony Blair screw-up, where he disclosed "current" intelligence on Iraq that turned out to be lifted from someone's thesis that was more than 10 year's old.

      This happened at the critical time when Colin Powell and he were making their case to show that Mr. Hussein was developing and hiding weapons of mass destruction. Although the case was strong, the mixup story was more meme-worthy than the long, detailed chain of evidence, and pr

  • abuse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phriedom ( 561200 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:52AM (#5596501)
    Now that plus PATRIOT is a nice formula for abuse. "Mr. Smith, we see that you have recently converted some of your holdings to cash and our database gives us reason to believe that you are going to give it to terrorists, so we have seized it. We don't have any evidence with which to charge you, but we will be watching you. No, of course you can't have the money back."
    • I think you mean "Mr. K" :)
      The world certainly is becomming more Kafkaesque day by day.

      • I thought he meant "Mr. Anderson"
      • One associates Franz Kafka with fantasy/satire (kind of inevitable when a guy writes stories about people turning into giant bugs). But the fact is that stories like The Trial [pinkmonkey.com] were not that far away from reality as Kafka knew it. For most of his life, his home province of Bohemia was part of the Hapsburg empire -- and the Austrian secret police indulged in exactly that kind of weird, unaccountable antics.

        Their counterparts in the UK [mi5.gov.uk] are sometimes known as "The Funny People." Very apt.

  • Nobody guarantees that Usenet is accurate, or the web. They capture any garbage anyone ever produces, and Google indexes it for everyone. The reader knows this, and distinguishing wheat from chaff is usually possible, and not too hard.

    If I have a mark on my record that I killed my great-great-grampa, followed by some authoritative marks that I really didn't and that first mark was in error, that looks fair to me. Not editing history is a good thing.

    • Re:so what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ipfwadm ( 12995 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:31AM (#5596605) Homepage
      Nobody guarantees that Usenet is accurate, or the web. They capture any garbage anyone ever produces, and Google indexes it for everyone. The reader knows this, and distinguishing wheat from chaff is usually possible, and not too hard.

      The stakes involved with Usenet or the web being inaccurate are typically far lower. If you read inaccurate data on the web, what happens? Nothing, really. If the FBI has inaccurate data in their database that says you're a murderer, what happens? They follow you around and arrest you the first time you doing anything suspicious.

      And distinguising wheat from chaff on the internet is a bit easier than in a person-information database. Sure, I can use reason to determine that the website that says that the earth is flat is inaccurate. It's a lot harder for someone who doesn't know anything about you except for what they're reading in your file to determine that the information saying you're a serial killer is inaccurate.

      If I have a mark on my record that I killed my great-great-grampa, followed by some authoritative marks that I really didn't and that first mark was in error, that looks fair to me. Not editing history is a good thing.

      Personally, I would prefer to NOT have a mark on my record saying I killed my great-great-grandpa, no matter how many marks were added saying I didn't do it. And removing the killer mark doesn't look like editing history to me. It looks a lot more like telling the truth.
    • That might look good to you, but I would be worried.

      All it takes is for some lantern-jawed policeman to glance at the file (and here in Australia, they can) when he stops you for speeding, and you're arrested.

      That's all it takes to be penalised later (e.g. when applying for visas to some countries).

      No offence to policemen here, but many are not the brightest sparks in the universe, and should not be expected to exercise the kind of critical thinking that others take for granted.

  • Here's the actual document (Score:4, Informative)

    by adenied ( 120700 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:56AM (#5596512)
    68 FR 14140 [akamaitech.net]. Direct link to the Federal Register. PDF format. Enjoy.

    PS: Request your FBI file regularly. It's really easy.
  • I dunno, my read on the article is that the reason for dropping the requirement is because so much of the data comes from other sources. I guess if the sources in question are "reliable" why should the FBI be required to recheck the data? I mean, it's like writing a term paper. You back up your statements with credible sources, and if the sources are credible you're not expected to back up their statements too. Besides the existing system hasn't prevented mistakes anyway.
    Not saying it's right, but it's more

  • What? You unpatriotic... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by entrigant ( 233266 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @02:58AM (#5596523)
    ... punks worrying about nothing but yourself! We got a $74 billion pointless war to fight for the love of god! We can't expect the government to have to pay money to protect our freedom!

  • A little honesty? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Loki_1929 ( 550940 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:01AM (#5596531) Journal
    Just for a change, I think we need to rename a couple of things. Specifically, I think we need to rename the "Homeland Security Dept" to: "The Fuck-the-Average-Citizen Dept".

    I'm not sure if that'll catch on, but it certainly would make me feel as though my government were attempting honesty for a change.

    Oh, how we yearn for the times around 1974, which you'll all remember is the year that the Privacy Act was made law.

  • What's the problem? (Score:5, Funny)

    by eidechse ( 472174 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:03AM (#5596536)
    All undertakings of The Ministry of Justice are double-plus-good.

  • Worse than identity theft or bad credit data (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekotourist ( 80163 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:11AM (#5596554) Journal
    With identity theft bad data gets attached to you and affects your ability to find a job, get a loan, rent an apartment... but it only affects you, and you get to attempt to fix it (takes an average of 175 hours and never really gets back to normal, but you legally can try).

    With this new policy, bad data will affect you and your ability to, say, travel without strip searches. And you'll have few (meaning zero) opportunities to fix it. But the best part is that the bad data will creep out to taint anyone you associate with: you'll now have a permanent case of dataSARS. If you're a possible terrorist, then your old roommates might be too. And your new business partners. And whoever you call regularly, so now grandma gets a breast cancer screening whenever she flies.

    I think the privacy commissioner of Canada is a precog: most of what he's warning about in his must-read essay on privacy [privcom.gc.ca] is coming true. (Or Ashcroft is using it as an anti-blueprint):

    " If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm.

    "Worse yet, we may never know what negative assumptions or judgments have been made about us in state files... Decisions detrimental to us may be made on the basis of wrong facts, incomplete or out-of-context information or incorrect assumptions, without our ever having the chance to find out about it, let alone to set the record straight.

    " That possibility alone will, over time, make us increasingly think twice about what we do, where we go, with whom we associate, because we will learn to be concerned about how it might look to the ubiquitous watchers of the state..."

    "The bottom line is this: If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free. That sort of life is characteristic of totalitarian countries, not a free and open society...

  • Archibald Tuttle, Heating Engineer (Score:5, Funny)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:15AM (#5596565) Homepage
    "I assure you, Mrs. Buttle, the Ministry is very scrupulous about following up and eradicating any error. If you have any complaints which you'd like to make, I'd be more than happy to send you the appropriate forms."

    Here is the relevant file from the FBI database: ARCHIBALD BUTTLE charged with Freelance Subversion, Deconstructive Behavior, Reckless Creation of Suspicion Among the Greater Public, Stealing Work from Qualified Personnel, Practicing Heating Engineering without a License, Failing to Complete Necessary Work Orders, Wasting Ministry Time and Paper

    The complete Python file is here: Tuttle [pythonet.org]

    Cheers, Joel

  • From personal experience, the NCIC is a mess. Only contained about half of my arrests, and had chgarges and outcomes both wrong and missing.

    To get it corrected, I had to track the original court records, then persuade the State Attorney General to sign a certification.

    You don't want to be driving around with the only database available to the average traffic cop telling him, incorrectly, that you are a convicted cop batterer..

  • Surely.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by paganizer ( 566360 ) <thegrove1NO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:47AM (#5596644) Homepage Journal
    There has to be a Patriotic, red blooded, flag flying, American Citizen out there who will defend the Department of Justice? After all, 85% of americans support the current reich, um, I mean government!
    Don't tell me all the polls are (gasp) WRONG!?.

    P.S. I'm a Disabled Gulf(1) Veteran. I earned the right to say whatever the fuck I want about the country.
  • The FBI etc. are not exactly famous for their acuracy. Only recently there was the case of that old man arrested in South Africa on an FBI warrent and he was left for a month before they realised that he was the victim of ID theft rather than the criminal.

  • not that big a shock (Score:3, Interesting)

    by andih8u ( 639841 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:51AM (#5596655)
    As someone who used to do contract work for the government here in DC, I can pretty much assure you that there was no way your information would have been accurate in the first place.
    I've spent half an hour explaining to govt employees the mystical function of the CAPS LOCK and the NUM LOCK keys, and these are the same people in charge of your records. So, we were all pretty much screwed from the get-go.

  • Not a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by technoCon ( 18339 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @03:51AM (#5596659) Homepage Journal
    Craig Livingstone got a severe whining at for providing the White House with hundreds of FBI reports--plenty of blackmail material which proved quite useful during the Clinton impeachment vote in congress. Just ask Larry Flynt.

    Conversely, Chuck Colson went to Federal Prison for disclosing one FBI report, providing the Watergate with a convenient conviction.

    Who cares what's in the FBI files since they'll only be used for political purposes by moral relativists.

  • Well, it's a part of the "trend" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @04:21AM (#5596722) Homepage


    Apparently US journalism has no obligations to adhere to the truth. [sierratimes.com]

  • Worst Case (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical@gmEEEail.com minus threevowels> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @04:28AM (#5596742)
    In the worst case scenario (well, almost worse case), you get arrested by a local cop for something that the NCIC said you did. You go to jail for a few days, then your lawyer sorts it all out.

    After that, you sue the city for relying on a database that they know is not correct. You sue the PD for false imprisonment. You sue the FBI for slander/libel. You sue the Justice Dept for allowing these idiots to ruin your standing in the community.

    Hell, you could even get 10 other people together and file a class-action with millions in punitave damages. Sure, the lawyers would get 40%, but that is still 60% of something you would have never seen. Than take your money and become a naturalized citizen of Swizerland. I hear Bern is nice this time of year...

    • Re:Worst Case (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gilroy ( 155262 )
      Blockquoth the poster:

      After that, you sue the city for relying on a database that they know is not correct. You sue the PD for false imprisonment. You sue the FBI for slander/libel. You sue the Justice Dept for allowing these idiots to ruin your standing in the community.

      And watch all your suits get thrown out because the relevant info is not made available to the court, on the grounds that it would "impact national security" for the FBI to provide statistics on the reliability of the database...

    • You go to jail for a few days... (Score:4, Funny)

      by geekotourist ( 80163 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:05AM (#5596934) Journal
      While the local paper splashes your picture on page B1 after "Impending arrest of secret criminal" is leaked. You have to rely on friends or family to find a lawyer (do you have a criminal lawyer ready to go? How many people do?) While in jail you get little sleep, so that when you're let out you can't argue too well about why your boss shouldn't let you go. "Sorry, but it makes us look bad to have a criminal here." You've already lost a few days wages, and you have to think hard about how much time to pay for at $200/hour.

      The city claims that the database software company is at fault. The dsc claims that Axciom is at fault. Axciom claims that it received data voluntarily and why didn't you clean up your credit report? The FBI claims it cannot reveal how it does its datamining in a public forum.

      The city still decides to settle. You get your $5,000 and rent a trailer at Lucerne at Clear Lake, California.

    • Switzerland...hahaha...good luck. You have a better chance of getting Japanese citizenship, than Swiss. Especially being American...I don't know if you've heard, but in Europe it's very fashionable to automatically reject anything American these days. Americans can expect to face public ridicule and private scorn from Europeans, due to no other reason than their nationality.

  • Voter Purge in 2004 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gnarly ( 133072 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @04:35AM (#5596761) Homepage
    Having inaccurate FBI/crime records will help purge the voter rolls in 2004 of all those pesky people who DIDN'T commit a felonies but who happen to be of the wrong demographic....

    Perhaps the mere thousands of legit voters who were [consortiumnews.com]
    purged in Florida 2000 can be increased to 10,000's as the database goes nationwide!

  • Officials said the change, which immediately drew criticism from civil-liberties advocates, is necessary to ensure investigators have access to information that can't be confirmed but could take on new significance later, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said.
    ALTER TABLE criminal_records ADD unverified_info LONGTEXT AFTER known_information;
  • The FBI recently requested the arrest and extradition of a British pensioner holidaying in South Africa for fraud. I've long considered the FBI to professional & above reproach so I quickly dismissed his claims he was innocent, because of my respect for the FBI. I even when so far as to say to family and friends 'the FBI doesn't make that sort of mistake' how wrong I was. I learnt a valuable lession and hopefully I will be wiser in future. It troubles me that the FBI didn't learn the same lession.

    P [bbc.co.uk]

  • misconceptions (Score:3, Funny)

    by BoogieGod ( 115832 ) <kenfoldsfive AT sbcglobal DOT net> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:38AM (#5597004)
    I'm not sure exactly what people think NCIC is, but judging by the responses that were modded up, I believe at least some of the assumptions are erroneous. The functions of NCIC are basically keeping a record of stolen property, allowing agencies to search for warrants, records of restraining orders, missing persons, deported felons, and specific threats to national security (such as people who have expressed specific intent to kill the president, etc... not people who buy too many books on fertilizer storage). Very few changes have been implemented since the inception of the system... none even remotely approaching the draconian orwellian total information awareness machine that people seem to think this is.

    One more apparently misunderstood point is that a "hit" on any information does not give the officer to power to arrest the person they believe to be a match. At the bottom (or top, depending on the state) of any NCIC hit is a message stating "Immediately confirm with ORI (originating agency)". Wants and warrants are not stored in NCIC. All that is present is a reference to a want or warrant held by a local agency. The officer must then contact the ORI directly to confirm the want. This does not involve NCIC in any way.

    So what does the change in the rules regarding this do? Not much, really. The are hundreds of thousands if not millions of transactions within NCIC every day. Basically what DOJ is doing is clarifying that any errors are the responsibility (and liability) of the agency that enters them.

    This changes your legal process the following way:

    Old way: An erroneous hit is made on you in NCIC. The officer deviates from procedure and federal law by not confirming the hit with the ORI. You sue the DOJ and local agency for violation of civil rights. The judge throws out the case against DOJ, finds the local agency and arresting officer liable. You get money. Hooray.

    The new way: An erroneous hit is made on you in NCIC. The officer deviates from procedure and federal law by not confirming the hit with the ORI. You sue the local agency for violation of civil rights. The judge finds the local agency and arresting officer liable. You still get money. Hooray.

  • This isn't anything new... (Score:3, Informative)

    by secondstringhero ( 661691 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @12:29PM (#5597967)
    For the last few years, the FBI has had the Supreme Court's stamp of approval for "mistakes" like this. Arizona v. Evans (514 US 1) pretty much castrated the exclusionary rule regarding computer databases. Basically, guy gets stopped for a traffic violation, guy had a then-expired misdemeanor warrant in the computer, guy gets arrested for drug possession (not what the warrant was for, by the way). Despite the fact that the warrant was invalid, the evidence was still admissible, so the guy was convicted.

    Their reasoning behind this? It's more of a clerical error than a police error, and since the exclusionary rule (forbidding illegally obtained evidence in court) is only supposed to deter police misconduct, everything's perfectly alright. Yeah, Rehnquist wrote it, so it's not like it's supposed to make sense. Before anyone turns this into a convervative-liberal argument, the vote was 7-2, so everyone's at fault.

    Anyway, before they were overruled, the Arizona Supreme Court was actually on the right track. From the majority opinion: "As automation increasingly invades modern life, the potential for Orwellian mischief grows. Under such circumstances, the exclusionary rule is a 'cost' we cannot afford to be without."

    Anyone hoping for a constitutional review of this, don't hold your breath.

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