Gov't Proposes Massive Homeless Tracking System 808
Chris Hoofnagle writes "The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development is proposing a massive system of tracking for homeless people and others who are served by shelters and care centers. The system will track people by their SSN, and will collect health (HIV, pregnancy) and mental information. Secret Service and national security agents can gain access to the database by just asking for it! EPIC has released a fact sheet on HMIS, and the public can comment on the guidelines until September 22, 2003, but no electronic comments are being accepted."
Re:1984 (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Not to be cruel, but... (Score:4, Informative)
"An HMIS offers many benefits to persons seeking and receiving homeless assistance services. Homeless clients can benefit from more effective and streamlined referrals from on-line information and referral and service directories. Clients can benefit from enhanced intra-agency coordination. For example, advanced HMIS software has been developed that both calculates client eligibility for multiple programs and generates ready-to-sign applications for those programs."
This is a GOOD thing. I suppose the alternative is to maintain "privacy by obscurity" through a lack of coordination and reliance on manual processes to determine eligibility and prepare applications? Yeesh...
Re:What a crock (Score:3, Informative)
I would have modded it funny, myself.
Re:What a crock (Score:2, Informative)
The invasion of privacy is right there. It's not the secret service bussiness to know where I eat.
Re:No, we need to track politicians, dammit! (Score:1, Informative)
Mission
To empower citizens by providing a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of information on individuals, organizations, and corporations related to the government of the United States of America.
To allow citizens to submit intelligence about government-related issues, while maintaining their anonymity. To allow members of the government a chance to participate in the process.
DEAD WRONG SENSATIONALISM (Score:2, Informative)
The truth about HMIS: