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."

Comments

Here's the actual document

[adenied]

68 FR 14140. Direct link to the Federal Register. PDF format. Enjoy.

PS: Request your FBI file regularly. It's really easy.

Re:Here's the actual document

[adenied]

Pretty easy to request your own file. Check out the DOJ's FOIA Guide. It will tell you where to send the request and what forms to fill out (Form DOJ-361 for instance, the Certification of Identify).

Re:Here's the actual document

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually requesting your FBI file doesn't really do much. I did this last year expecting some sort of files on me, and instead i got a piece of paper saying that the FBI does not keep track of individual citizens, and that they had sent me everything in the database which was nothing. I did exactly what those instructions on the page said, and it works. You'll only get something if you have committed a crime, or they have some reason to keep track of you. But for most people on here your efforts will be in vain cause all you'll get is 12 weeks of waiting and a piece of paper explaining you have no file.

~Nate

It's not just here

[adamsc]

There have been a number of legal reviews which have concluded that the Europeans are keeping pace with the US on that front. The situation is actually worse in like England where any right can be revoked by the current government - at least in the US you at least have the hope of getting something truly egregious thrown out as unconstitutional.

Speaking of which, it's probably time to start planning for some protracted legal battles cleaning up the anti-terrorist mess.

Re:Liberties abroad, accept at home

[ojQj]

I do consider the assertion that the Iraqi's will get individual liberty to be a questionable one.

Kurdish (that's the ethnic group in Northern Iraq) refugees in Germany have been holding massive anti-war demonstrations. That's right -- the oppressed people are against the war. It's not because they like Mr. Hussein -- nobody does. It's because they fear that they will have less freedoms after the war. One possible scenario, for example, is that Turkey will march into the Kurdish areas. There are already massive rumours (apparently unreported in American news) that Turkey has already started moving troops into the area "for humanitarian reasons". Given Turkey's history with it's own Kurdish minority, the Kurds in Iraq have good reasons to be afraid that the US will sell them to Turkey for fly-over and troop stationing rights.

The reason that Turkey wants them in the first place is because they fear that a Kurdish nation could be created in northern Iraq and strengthen the Kurds in southern Turkey's desire to seperate from Turkey.

The Shiite minorities in southern Iraq are equally unfriendly to US interests. A few years ago the US encouraged them to revolt against Saddam and then failed to provide the necessary support when they did. The revolt was brutally put down, and the Shiites felt betrayed by the US. This is why US soldiers haven't been getting the warm receptions that the US claimed they would get. Sure, there are a few non-representative happy people for US cameramen to film, but the overall response hasn't been anything like the American march into Germany at the end of WWII.

And then we can look at historical examples of US involvement in other countries. The most recent one would be Afghanistan. The US had barely reduced the little remaining infrastructure in the country to ruins before it decided to start the next war. Current aid to Afghanistan: $300 million. War cost in Iraq: est. $75 billion (The White House's estimation -- actual cost could be wide over that mark). Looking a little further back, I could start discussing Iran, various South American countries, Vietnam, and etc. But I would like for people to learn to do their own research. (Clue: your history teacher failed to inform you of just about every inappropriate act of the American government since the extermination of the American Indians.)

So in conclusion: Yes there is a chance that this could all end with a free Iraq. I certainly hope so, since there's no going back now. But I don't delude myself into thinking that it's likely.

This isn't anything new...

[secondstringhero]

For the last few years, the FBI has had the Supreme Court's stamp of approval for "mistakes" like this. Arizona v. Evans (514 US 1) pretty much castrated the exclusionary rule regarding computer databases. Basically, guy gets stopped for a traffic violation, guy had a then-expired misdemeanor warrant in the computer, guy gets arrested for drug possession (not what the warrant was for, by the way). Despite the fact that the warrant was invalid, the evidence was still admissible, so the guy was convicted.

Their reasoning behind this? It's more of a clerical error than a police error, and since the exclusionary rule (forbidding illegally obtained evidence in court) is only supposed to deter police misconduct, everything's perfectly alright. Yeah, Rehnquist wrote it, so it's not like it's supposed to make sense. Before anyone turns this into a convervative-liberal argument, the vote was 7-2, so everyone's at fault.

Anyway, before they were overruled, the Arizona Supreme Court was actually on the right track. From the majority opinion: "As automation increasingly invades modern life, the potential for Orwellian mischief grows. Under such circumstances, the exclusionary rule is a 'cost' we cannot afford to be without."

Anyone hoping for a constitutional review of this, don't hold your breath.