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False Information A-Okay in Primary FBI Database
blamanj writes "The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which compiles a huge database on criminals, arrest warrants, missing persons, etc., no longer has to put up with the pesky problem of ensuring the data is accurate. I guess the Justice Department isn't particularly concerned with justice anymore." The full text of the provision which the main FBI criminal database will no longer have to adhere to is: "Each agency that maintains a system of records shall ... maintain all records which are used by the agency in making any determination about any individual with such accuracy, relevance, timeliness, and completeness as is reasonably necessary to assure fairness to the individual in the determination."
If they're not worried about accuracy, they'll save millions by simply using a very large MS Access database!
I would rather imprison hundred innocents than let one guilty go free.
No screwup, we're referring your file to the Ministry of Pre-Crime.
Just for a change, I think we need to rename a couple of things. Specifically, I think we need to rename the "Homeland Security Dept" to: "The Fuck-the-Average-Citizen Dept".
I'm not sure if that'll catch on, but it certainly would make me feel as though my government were attempting honesty for a change.
Oh, how we yearn for the times around 1974, which you'll all remember is the year that the Privacy Act was made law.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
All undertakings of The Ministry of Justice are double-plus-good.
Here is the relevant file from the FBI database: ARCHIBALD BUTTLE charged with Freelance Subversion, Deconstructive Behavior, Reckless Creation of Suspicion Among the Greater Public, Stealing Work from Qualified Personnel, Practicing Heating Engineering without a License, Failing to Complete Necessary Work Orders, Wasting Ministry Time and Paper
The complete Python file is here: Tuttle
Cheers, Joel
I think you mean "Mr. K" :)
The world certainly is becomming more Kafkaesque day by day.
So if you wait a year, and send the request again, do you get a copy of your first request back?
The above quote nicely points out the failure of modern democracy. It used to be 'If you don't like it, vote against it.
My sympathies to the American people, but take comfort in the fact that GWB was not elected by a majority vote. Who knows, we might even let you rejoin the international community once you have a democratically elected government.
What... is that because you're a cereal filler?
The city claims that the database software company is at fault. The dsc claims that Axciom is at fault. Axciom claims that it received data voluntarily and why didn't you clean up your credit report? The FBI claims it cannot reveal how it does its datamining in a public forum.
The city still decides to settle. You get your $5,000 and rent a trailer at Lucerne at Clear Lake, California.
I'm not sure exactly what people think NCIC is, but judging by the responses that were modded up, I believe at least some of the assumptions are erroneous. The functions of NCIC are basically keeping a record of stolen property, allowing agencies to search for warrants, records of restraining orders, missing persons, deported felons, and specific threats to national security (such as people who have expressed specific intent to kill the president, etc... not people who buy too many books on fertilizer storage). Very few changes have been implemented since the inception of the system... none even remotely approaching the draconian orwellian total information awareness machine that people seem to think this is.
One more apparently misunderstood point is that a "hit" on any information does not give the officer to power to arrest the person they believe to be a match. At the bottom (or top, depending on the state) of any NCIC hit is a message stating "Immediately confirm with ORI (originating agency)". Wants and warrants are not stored in NCIC. All that is present is a reference to a want or warrant held by a local agency. The officer must then contact the ORI directly to confirm the want. This does not involve NCIC in any way.
So what does the change in the rules regarding this do? Not much, really. The are hundreds of thousands if not millions of transactions within NCIC every day. Basically what DOJ is doing is clarifying that any errors are the responsibility (and liability) of the agency that enters them.
This changes your legal process the following way:
Old way: An erroneous hit is made on you in NCIC. The officer deviates from procedure and federal law by not confirming the hit with the ORI. You sue the DOJ and local agency for violation of civil rights. The judge throws out the case against DOJ, finds the local agency and arresting officer liable. You get money. Hooray.
The new way: An erroneous hit is made on you in NCIC. The officer deviates from procedure and federal law by not confirming the hit with the ORI. You sue the local agency for violation of civil rights. The judge finds the local agency and arresting officer liable. You still get money. Hooray.
"See, sir? He's a serial killer, and he even admits it? Those garbled bits? Nah, we don't care about those anymore."
-T