Gov't Proposes Massive Homeless Tracking System

Chris Hoofnagle writes "The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development is proposing a massive system of tracking for homeless people and others who are served by shelters and care centers. The system will track people by their SSN, and will collect health (HIV, pregnancy) and mental information. Secret Service and national security agents can gain access to the database by just asking for it! EPIC has released a fact sheet on HMIS, and the public can comment on the guidelines until September 22, 2003, but no electronic comments are being accepted."

Comments

Re:Good deal

[frovingslosh]

And once this is in place, you're next.

this is sounds like FUD

[kaan]

The summary makes it seem like the government is just stalking homeless people to be annoying and intrusive. Whether the government does something stupid or not, you can bet they have a reason for doing it (even though the reason might also be stupid). But what's the reason to stalk and track "homeless people"? It's not just to be annoying and intrusive.

From the EPIC HMIS fact sheet (pdf):

Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) are database systems intended to track recipients of benefits in order to assess the number of persons receiving care, and to improve efficiency of services to the poor.

I happen to work for a company that deals with electronifying benefits for people on welfare, and you can bet there is a LOT of time spent both by financial institutions, private companies and governments (both state and federal), and it's not just for fun. There is a huge problem with fraud, and whether you're homeless or not, you can count on the government wanting to continue their trend of knowing which welfare recipients are spending what, who doesn't spend any of it, and who's money is being spent but not by the intended recipient (aka, fraud).

Consider this: without fraud protection, monitoring, and investigation, each and every tax-paying citizen will be indirectly donating a portion of their hard-earned cash to fund a bunch of welfare thieves.

Re:What a crock

[jared_hanson]

I do browse at -1, otherwise I would have never seen the post and made my original statement. Let me point you to my reasoning by making a repost of a reply I made earlier in this same thread:

I'm not saying the parent deserves favorable moderation. But lets look at the definition of troll in the moderator guidelines:

Troll -- A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections." Trolling is the online equivalent of intentionally dialing wrong numbers just to waste other people's time.

All this guy did was say that he thought the tracking system was a good idea, and he promptly got slapped with a troll moderation, which he clearly is not, given the definition. He's even on topic. The worst you should do is moderate him overrated, which doesn't have the associated knocking of the poster that troll does.