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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.
Come on. We've known forever that the FBI has huge files on tons of people, there where stories about the FBI file on einstein on here a week or so back. Had it been the actual FBI selling this information and not a couple of bad apple agents pissed they didn't get a raise this year then perhaps it would be a huge story.
As it is, this just shows they need a little stronger check as to who has access to what, but they did catch the people so I am assuming some checks are already there.
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
As governmental databases will reach critical mass, especially with cross-indexing and cross-searches are made more and more common (Oracle database proposals anyone?), I can safely predict that this kind of abuse will only become more and more common.
Do you still think your government does not spy on you? Think again...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
No. Fundamentally, this case illustrates the corruption of power. Governments are made up of lots of individuals, with their own problems, stresses and challenges. They are not angels. If the opportunity to profit from their position appears, many will take it. Putting more levels of bureaucracy and control is just a form of "moving the problem around."
If you want to grant the government more power to accomplish things, abuse of power is the natural, and practically inevitable result. Get used to it. It will happen more and more often over time as we surrender more and more of our freedoms. Especially for the never-ending war on terrorism.
The question we should be asking is "Why does the FBI have this data in the first place?", not "why aren't there sufficient controls to protect this data?"
This sort of thing is the answer to that constant refrain when one tries to protest or object to the ever-increasing government surveillance, information and data interception and storage. "I've done nothing wrong, so I've got nothing to hide." You may not have broken the law, but mebbe your husband would be interested to know about that drunken fling a couple of years ago at the office christmas party, and say, aren't these expenses claims a bit... creative? And tell me, why ARE you browsing gay porn from home, what with you being married with kids? and so on, and on. Humans are of course the weakness in all these systems promoted by clue-lite technocrats - those politicians who advocate technological solutions to everything, but who don't read the RISKS digest, or CryptoGram, or Incidents, Bugtraq, "Crash!" (the Tonty Collins book, not the Ballard one...) and so on.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe