False Information A-Okay in Primary FBI Database 443
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."
Data accuracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Data accuracy (Score:2)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Data accuracy (Score:5, Funny)
How does the saying go? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How does the saying go? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How does the saying go? (Score:2)
Just wait and see, US is no different.
Re:How does the saying go? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:How does the saying go? (Score:2, Insightful)
Liability (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Liability (Score:2)
Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Speaking of which, it's probably time to start planning for some protracted legal battles cleaning up the anti-terrorist mess.
Re:It's not just here (Score:2)
Re:It's not just here (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also judicial review, under which a judge can can declare that a law or regulation is "irrational" or "does not achieve its intended purpose" (IIRC), but that's not got much teeth.
Re:It's not just here (Score:2)
Unfortunately, most of it is, in geek-speak, bug-ridden. The freedom of expression, for example, has paragraph 2: essentially, it says (1) You have the right to freedom of expression ... (2) subject to the interests of national security. As loopholes go, that's pretty damn big. ("We have to censor $group - they might spread information about $govt_stuff!")
Then, we come to the ability of governments t
Re:It's not just here (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you looked at the PATRIOT act recently?
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
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
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2, Informative)
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
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
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
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
That's assuming they actually do get it [officialspin.com].
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
The bigger problem is that most people did not vote - democracy works only as well as the voters. Right now life in the US is still comfortable enough for p
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
Nonetheless, there was something unseemly in the haste and unconcealed zest with which the usually rabid "states rights" conservative justices decide to reach in and pre-empt local control of elections -- which has historically been one of the clear-cut foundations of federalism. I found it odd to hear Scalia quote principles of judicial activism that
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
What they actually said was "no, there shouldn't be a third recount, we'll let the result of the first two counts stand". On the first count: Bush won, but by a small margin, so there was a recount to double-check. He won that count too. Then Gore starts whining "not fair, I wanted to win! Keep counting until it says I did!"
From my (non-USian) perspective, Gore looked
Do something about it (Score:2)
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 (
Re:Do something about it (Score:3, Insightful)
However, some conservatives seem to be coming around; see here [charlotte.com] and here [usatoday.com].
Re:Do something about it (Score:2)
Kinda like being a card-carrying member of the NRA or of the Armed Forces during the previous administration, eh?
Re:Do something about it (Score:2)
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
ACLU targets the wrong issues (Score:2)
A few examples:
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
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.
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:3, Insightful)
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
But here's the rub (Score:2)
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
Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home (Score:2)
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
Re:Liberties abroad, except at home (Score:2)
Over in the US, they stick an anal probe in you for everything you do - school, banking, job, driving, housing, that is except for voter registration. Then they are so easy going and unintrusive - it's truely amazing. I'm curious if it's the same in the UK?
Re:Liberties abroad, except at home (Score:2)
That's correct. The anal probe that normally would accompany voter registration is held in reserve for when you, as a registered voter, are called in for jury duty. If you live in a state with one-day jury service, you can get out of jury duty faster if you aren't picked (one day and you're out), but now they won't take any excuses for not showing up for
Drat! (Score:2)
Re:Drat! (Score:3, Funny)
"See, sir? He's a serial killer, and he even admits it? Those garbled bits? Nah, we don't care about those anymore."
-T
How do I add to it? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How do I add to it? (Score:2)
Hmm we seem to be going even further (Score:2)
1984 (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought Bush never read any books, but apparently he has been inspired by one! T
Re:1984 (Score:2)
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.
Re:1984 (Score:2)
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
Re:1984 (Score:2)
Re:1984 (Score:2)
Obviously! C'mon... (Score:2, Insightful)
1st step in keeping databases clean (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:1st step in keeping databases clean (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
Re:abuse (Score:3, Funny)
The world certainly is becomming more Kafkaesque day by day.
Re:abuse (Score:2)
The World Has Always Been Kafkaesque (Score:2)
Their counterparts in the UK [mi5.gov.uk] are sometimes known as "The Funny People." Very apt.
so what? (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:so what? (Score:2)
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)
PS: Request your FBI file regularly. It's really easy.
Re:Here's the actual document (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Here's the actual document (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here's the actual document (Score:2)
yes
They probably never double checked anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
Not saying it's right, but it's more
Re:They probably never double checked anyway (Score:2)
What? You unpatriotic... (Score:4, Insightful)
A little honesty? (Score:3, Funny)
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)
Worse than identity theft or bad credit data (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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
Glad I got my entry corrected last year. (Score:2)
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)
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.
No change then... (Score:2)
not that big a shock (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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)
Apparently US journalism has no obligations to adhere to the truth. [sierratimes.com]
Worst Case (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
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)
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.
Re:You go to jail for a few days... (Score:2)
Most "community" people are too small minded to matter anyway.
Re:Worst Case (Score:2)
Voter Purge in 2004 (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Technology makes life so simple? (Score:2)
UK Pensioner freed after FBI bungle. (Score:2)
P [bbc.co.uk]
misconceptions (Score:3, Funny)
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)
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.
Re:Designation (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone whos involved in a little situation with our justice system, right now i can say that the court system needs some work. They constantly lose mailed items so you better have your OWN proof of what you sent out because they dont care. Our system is backlogged so bad that if there is a mistake nobody has the time to fix it. If you call to explain a problem the person on the other line usually says something like "wow that sucks but were really sorry nobody
dealing with courts and administrations (Score:2)
Pretending that some mail never arrived, or ignoring it, is an old trick of all bureaucracies.
Justice has no place in government at all (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, what is the Just and Fair thing to happen to an American guy who things the taliban is morally correct and goes to Afghanistan to join them? Ok, now ask what should be done to prevent such a man from harming Americans. Different question, and a much more practical one.
Justice is institutional revenge. Our government should not be making such judgments about right and wrong, they should be making judgments on how to protect and serve the populace.
This isn't completely tangential to the topic, either - consider how this would turn out (in an ideal world) if the fbi did not look at these databases as a tool to punish the evildoers, hunt them down at any cost to deliver that punishment, but as a tool to protect those who would be victims of the evildoers - in that view (ideal world, remember) the accuracy of the data would be inherently important as a part of that protection.
In such a view, there would be no such thing as a Victimless Crime, since crime would be defined by its harm to society (no victims, no harm done).
Re:Justice has no place in government at all (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you, Schoolhouse Rock!
Re:Designation (Score:3, Interesting)
What was that you were mumbling about lawmakers?
Re:Designation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh No! (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, but it doesn't go both ways (Score:2)
Try maintaining an address and record database on government officers and employees and see how quickly you get shut down.
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in the freest country on Earth? Does this have something to do with that whole, war is peace, slavery is freedom thing? Just what other countries are you comparing the US to when you say this? Have you visited other countries?
If you want to sit back while your entire life is reduced to nothing more than data in a database, that's fine, but I believe that a human being is more than just data. I believe I have an intrinsic right to human dignity - something which is taken away when my entire life becomes an entry in some damned database to be searched through, scrutinized, colated, etc. My government has absolutely no right to catalog and judge every moment of my life, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let my children grow up in a nation where they have to watch what they say and do, lest they be mistaken for a "threat".
If you think it's anti-American to question the tactics and policies of the government, then you know not the first thing about what it is to be an American. I believe you'll find the regimes in China, Iraq, Iran, or North Korea more to your liking, as those who question the government there are shot. I question my government's actions and plans because I recognize that it is a servant of the people. As such, I have a right and a duty to question anything I see as degrading the service provided to me and my fellow citizens by our government. If you don't like it, move; I really don't give a damn.
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2)
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2, Funny)
The above quote nicely points out the failure of modern democracy. It used to be 'If you don't like it, vote against it.
My sympathies to the American people, but take comfort in the fact that GWB was not elected by a majority vote. Who knows, we might even let you rejoin the international community once you have a democratically elected government.
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't work. In a few years, American troops will be sent to "liberate" me, and before that, senior American officials will berate the goverment for allowing me to voice 'anti-American sentiment'.
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2)
Re:Blind anti-American idiocy (Score:2)
Tell that to Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in Chicago, now rotting in a South Carolina naval brig without trial or counsel. (The DoJ is appealing a federal judge's order that he receive counsel; see here [washingtonpost.com] and here [nytimes.com].) He is being held based solely on the word of the Pres