Slashdot Mirror
FBI Databases Used for Stock Fraud
Phronesis writes "The Associated Press reports that two FBI agents have been indicted for conspiring with the owner of InsideTruth.com to short stocks and then leak information from the FBI's internal databases (e.g., unpleasant personal information about corporate officers). They also allegedly blackmailed companies with the threat of revealing such information. This case illustrates the failure of law enforcement agencies to implement adequate protection against the abuse of information they collect."
Why these guys were collecting such information in the first place. Seriously, there are a lot of privacy activists out there, but it seems to me that the vast majority of them are complaining about the cookie-of-the-month problem when what they should really be looking at are the kinds of scams government data collecting enables. Identity theft, for instance, wouldn't be possible if not for the ubiquity of Social Security numbers as a "citizen ID" of sorts.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Anyone who thought that the FBI is beyond reproach only had to look at the Hanssen case. This one, however, is even more interesting because it represents commercial use of sensitive information. I will treasure this as an example of why Governments should also have a 'need-to-know' applied to them.
otherwise they are just normal people. FBI employees around 30 000 people. A little city. I bet they use the database for criminal purposes hundreds of times every day.
A clip from here:
" The Webster commission is expected to recommend limiting highly sensitive files to those with a strong need-to-know -- "role-based access," in FBI jargon. "
'Expected to recommend...' exactly what is the procedure currently?!?! These systems and their databases are extremely scary.
"This case illustrates the failure of law enforcement agencies to implement adequate protection against the abuse of information they collect."
This case illustrates the failure of trusting and empowering large beaurocratic entities to snoop into everyone's lives in the mistaken notion that will somehow make us all "safer."
Individuals have never come close to committing the level and magnitude of atrocities that governments, including our own (USA), have, in terms of lives destroyed and even taken, not to mention human suffering in unthinkable numbers. Consider WW I, WW II, the Nazi regime, the Stalin regime, the Mao regime, the Khmere Rouge regime, the Saddam Hussein regime, and the Taliban regime. Even Osama bin Laden, with government support was unable to match any of those in shere atrocities committed (and what Osama "the fallatio queen" bin Laden did manage to do he likely couldn't have pulled that off without ongoing aid and support from the Taliban regime).
If events like these do not illuminate the fallacy of giving up freedom and handing the government authority over our lives in the mistaken notion that it will keep us safer, then really nothing will and our society as such is doomed.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's amazing how as more and more police powers are being granted that the whole innocent until proven guilty thing is going out the window.
These days they collect information on bad tips, and hunches. The lack of oversight is appalling. I do admit that some of the laws where overly tight. The whole must get a warrant for each device for tapping is a bit extreme, even as a privacy advocate. What I don't like are the fishing expeditions that they're engaging in now. Especially they're imply threats against those who don't cooperate. The whole "your unamerican and not patriotic" if you don't wholly bend over and take it from law enforcement is a bit much.
Speeding for me is a great example. Arbitrarily enforced and most often broken by officers without need (no lights or sirens). It seems that many officers take their badge as a right to be outside the law. TV shows and movies make police look bad, but when some of the real stories come out... it's usually so much worse then the fiction that you wonder why we ever wanted to trust these people.
I will also be the first to admit that law enforcement is a thankless task. I do appreciate those individuals that are honestly serving.
You just can't win.
Last year, the Detroit Free Press ran a two part story about police officers who abused a law enforcment data base, which is tied into the FBI's NCIC, for personal reasons.
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http://www.freep.com/news/mich/lein31_20010731.ht
Cops tap database to harass, intimidate
July 31, 2001
First of two parts
BY M. L. ELRICK
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Police throughout Michigan, entrusted with the personal and confidential information in a state law enforcement database, have used it to stalk women, threaten motorists and settle scores....
Police said they think the system, which is used to make about 3 million background checks each month, is more widely abused than anyone knows...
Despite rules limiting LEIN use to law enforcement purposes, police told the Free Press their colleagues use LEIN to check out attractive people they spot on the road.
"I'm not going to be so naive as to say an officer hasn't seen a pretty girl and run her plate," said Carey, who also was once chief in Troy.
Former Memphis Police Chief Phillip Ludos said the practice is so common it is known simply as "Running a plate for a date."...
A few months ago, the Free Press did a follow-up, about how the Detroit police handled the offenders:
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/lein26_20020426.ht
Abusers' names to be wiped out
Officers who misused LEIN won't be traceable
April 26, 2002
by M.L. Elrick
Free Press Staff Writer
LANSING -- State officials made it harder Thursday for the public to learn who has abused the confidential Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), a computer database containing driving records, criminal records and other personal information.
Reversing their practice of keeping the names of police and others who abuse the system, the Criminal Justice Information Systems Policy Council voted to delete the names after investigating each case.
The council, made up of prosecutors, police and state officials, made the change after state and local police officials expressed concerns that maintaining a database of abusers would violate labor contracts, which limit the amount of time a transgression can remain on an employee's record...