Neil Havermale wrote:
>
> http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9906/11/crime.idg/
>
> Is this legal?
>
Well, once upon a time when I was driving a "beat-up chevy
impala" from school in upstate New York to Massachusetts, I got
stopped and searched four different times that day by the NY
State police along Rte 20 (they used to pick on us economic zeros
to pass the time I 'spect). If they had had a system like this
they would have been informed that I'd already gotten the
treatment... or then again, maybe they would have been able to
track me even better and continue the harassment into
Massachusetts.
But though an interstate criminal database sounds like a good
idea, and in its best intention it is, I'm not at all in favor of
governments keeping widespread interconnected records of
"suspects" and information on cases where charges were dropped,
or any other hearsay records. Sure, it's information that might
be useful to warn a police officer of potential danger, but it
might also be wrong and result in a normal situation suddenly
getting dangerous. The US Constitutions says citizens are to be
treated as innocent until proven guilty, and I'd hate to have the
state using lists of unproved charges even against society's
bottom dwellers (as if the state has ever been able to tell the
difference). And worse, they are talking about a private
internet-like (as in distributed database) system... good luck
ever getting mistakes fixed on something like that!
The worst thing we could ever have would be a government that
strives for efficiency as its highest goal. Computer databases
and GIS analysis can be effective weapons against crime, but it
behooves us to realize that a weapon is still a weapon.
- Bill Thoen
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