Police Database Lists 'Future Criminals'

Rio writes: "A Local6.com article tells us about a database that contains a list of people who police believe are likely to break the law. It features names, addresses and photographs of potential suspects --many of whom have clean slates. Since the system was introduced in Wilmington in June, most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods."

Comments

Seems "minority report" is not far from reality...

[yuggoth]

how long till the suspected criminals-to-be are arrested "just in case"?

From another article

[Sc00ter]

Mayor James Baker called the criticism "asinine and intellectually bankrupt."

"I don't care what anyone but a court of law thinks," he said. "Until a court says otherwise, if I say it's constitutional, it's constitutional."

That's from this article.

Soon to be expanded to the rest of the country...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Consider This bill...

If passed, this will mandate a year of military training for nearly all "selective service" age males (and any females for volunteer - is it just me or is this an amusing chauvenistic anachronism for a modern law?...).

It's far from being an outright "draft", but it holds a disturbing (and on-topic) implication.

I seem to recall that when someone begins US military service, that they are subjected to a variety of examinations, including, I assume, psychiatric ones. Of course, the military keeps records of the results.

Therefore...this bill is basically a convenient way to ensure that the US Federal Government would from that day forth be able to "profile" effectively every male US citizen as they hit voting age. It'd be a trivial matter, in a technical sense, to automate the "picking out" of any results that are deemed "worrisome" and the reports shared with law enforcement agencies everywhere...

I'm not certain that's the main PURPOSE of the bill, but I don't doubt that aspect of it would appeal to current AND FUTURE executive administrations in the US....

Re:Go figure, it's for the "war" on drugs.

[Quintin Stone]

I don't think you realize just how much money law enforcement agencies rake in because of the war on drugs. Due to blatantly unconstitutional seizure laws, police, FBI, DEA, etc. can seize property deemed "contributory" to alleged drug crimes, or bought with the proceeds of alleged drug trafficking. In other words, if they accuse you of hiding drugs in your car or house, they can take that property away from you, without a trial and often without a warrant. They are also under no obligation to return said property even if the original charges are dropped or if you are acquited. Any cash found during a drug search will also be seized, as will large enough amounts of money found during other procedures (i.e. if they find a suitcase full of money in your car during a traffic stop, or if you're found boarding a plane with lots of cash, they might very well take it from you).

Legal battles to get property returned are difficult, costly, with no guarantees of winning. And if you do win, the cost of getting the property back may be more than it was worth in the first place.

The cash and proceeds from auctioning off all that seized property go directly towards funding law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels. In fact, the money from the seizures is often figured directly into the budgets of departments, meaning that they will budgeted less taxpayer money because they are expected to pull in as much cash from seizures as they did last year. If they don't, their department will face a budget crunch, so it is directly beneficial to police to seize as much property as they can, in order to pay for new uniforms, sidearms, squad cars, radios, etc. Not to mention all the perks enjoyed by the big bosses, including sports cars, houses, boats, and more.

All thanks to the wonderful "war on drugs". It will never end because the people in power personally gain so much from it.