From: "David M", [EMAIL PROTECTED] 17 Jan. 2001 There have been a couple of items recently in the press concerning spies within the police forces of Canada and New Zealand who have passed sensitive information to gang members. As you may be aware our Police Minister has recently stated that all firearms in New Zealand will be registered and an independent firearms authority set up to oversee licencing and registration of lawful gun owners and their firearms. There is growing concern among the law abiding firearms community that a national database may be compromised to the extent that it becomes, in effect, a shopping list for gangs and organised crime. There have been several serious thefts of significant quantities of guns (mostly handguns which are already subject to registration in New Zealand) in recent months which seem to have borne the hallmarks of being "inside" jobs. This has done nothing to allay the fear of shooters that their private details are no longer safe even with the Police. Can anyone point me to any further newspaper articles or reports detailing insecurity of police or government databases? The maintenance of privacy and/or infiltration of official databases by organised crime or to any criminal action that might be traced back to information that could have been sourced from a compromised database? Many thanks for any assistance in this, DM -- There was a case in London in the mid-80s where some guns were stolen and it appeared to have been an "inside" job. Possibly just some licensing officer yabbering on at the pub, but regardless I'm not keen on the idea of there being a central registry that can be accessed by any copper. It's very important that people write to the FCC to voice their concerns over this registry idea. They have to do it now because it is spelled out in Section 39 of the 1997 Act but significant safeguards must be implemented. Access must be limited to people with a good reason to see the information, and any access must be documented. Another point worth mentioning is that all information on people who have given up shooting (rather than having their certificate revoked because of a criminal act) should be purged from the system. There is no reason for the police to have a database of people who at some point held a firearm certificate. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________________________ T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less. Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Topics You Choose. http://www.topica.com/partner/tag01
