Navy Database Tracks Civilians' Parking Tickets, Fender-Benders 96
schwit1 (797399) writes with this excerpt from the Washington Examiner: "A parking ticket, traffic citation or involvement in a minor fender-bender are enough to get a person's name and other personal information logged into a massive, obscure federal database run by the U.S. military.
The Law Enforcement Information Exchange, or LinX, has already amassed 506.3 million law enforcement records ranging from criminal histories and arrest reports to field information cards filled out by cops on the beat even when no crime has occurred."
Re:Navy Security Agency (Score:4, Interesting)
"Maybe they just wanted a database that was more accurate than the riffraff online investigation sites offer, it is public record anyway."
No, it isn't. Certainly not all of it, anyway.
In my state, even police are required to log a reason for looking up a license plate. Most data about the public is not a matter of public record.
Having said that: some things are, of course. The fact that someone has been arrested is temporarily public record, so that you can see whether your boyfriend needs to get bailed out again when he doesn't show up for a day. And so on. And conviction records are public. But not all arrest records remain public because not everyone who is arrested is convicted... it's a great way to discriminate against innocent people.
I think -- but I am not sure -- that convictions for traffic violations are also public. Which includes guilty pleas.