Airport Monitoring of Travellers via Blackberry

glhturbo writes "According to this article in Mass. High Tech, Massachusetts State Police stationed at Logan Airport will soon have access (via Blackberry handhelds) to "7 billion records" containing information on "nearly 98 percent of the U.S. population, including, for example, a person's prior residence and with whom he or she lived, criminal information, court filings, vehicles owned, and even restricted government data." The database is from a Massachusetts company, LocatePlus, started by a former policeman who was "on the waiting list for the FBI". Seems like a good tool, but major potential for abuse, and hopefully no false identifications."

Comments

What year is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh? Is it 1984 or 2004? These days I just can't tell.

Mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously man, who knows what lives most guards at airports have led before taking that job. What if they are ex-cons, and this data is just what they were looking for to get their next kickback?

Like, I won't arrest you if you pay me 10k.... Or I won't tell your wife you've been living in an apartment in Florida with an unmarried woman...

The potential for abuse is just enormous.

However, this kind of capability is not going to go away. What we need is a structure in place that will ensure that no abuses take place. It's a cliche, but we need a monitor of the monitors...

Here's another one (but appropriate): who will monitor the monitors of the monitors?

Already needs an upgrade.

[teamhasnoi]

Truly, it's the missing 2% that we should really be worried about. I'm guessing there's a noticeable lack of CEOs, politicians, and others who can buy, wheedle or threaten their way out of the database.

When I can find out Bill G's home address, Dick Cheney's driver's licence number, George's arrest record, and Ken Lay's bank balance - then I'll say it's fair.

Anyone who says this is not ripe for abuse is a shareholder.

Dossiers

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A: This service has zero info that you shouldn't have. It's all public records, the scary part of this service is that they seem to have most of the nation's public records about individuals assembled in an easy-to-query form.

The fact that info is public record does NOT mean that it's OK to assemble it with OTHER information that is ALSO public record and make the result - or even the original public records - available at electronic speed.

One of the big objections to the creation of the Social Security System was that the SS# would serve as a universal identifier, making it easier to assemble dossiers of individuals from diverse public records. This almost killed the program - which was eventually passed on the promise (among others) that the nubmer would NEVER EVER EVER be used in that way.

Remember that this was before WWII, which means before computers and even xerography. ("copying" was, at best, thermofax, blueprint, or photography.) AND in the midst of the "Great Depression", with its starving masses of people (including the elderly) who had just gone bankrupt and lost their homes, farms, and businesses in a pre "welfare" system environment.

Can you IMAGINE how concerned they were to consider blocking the creation of the SS system JUST to prevent the hand-construction and misuse of manual dossiers composed of public information?

The US classified information rules DO classify the JUXTIPOSITION of certain publicly available unclassified information - whenever this juxtaposition hints at something that IS sensitive. This happens in nuclear physics, radio, and several other fields. Why should individuals be any less protected from combining public information in a way that stips more of their privacy than the individual records standing alone?

= = = =

Databases run in their private time by policemen or retired policemen were, back in the '70s, a dodge to get around new laws banning ilicit governmental record keeping. These laws were passed after the government's investigative agencies at all levels (FBI, Military Intelligence, State/County/City police) went 'WAY out of bounds on domestic surveilance and so-called "dirty tricks" against people suspected of participating in the civil rights and anti(vietnam)war movement. (See COINTELPRO for an example.)

They were SUPPOSED to destroy the ill-gotten info. But instead some of them absconded with it and set up for-profit companies to maintain it and sell access back to the very police departments that weren't supposed to have it. This let the departments continue to use it and CLAIM that they didn't have it.

So this one is run by a former policeman, eh? Any bets on whether it's a modern continuation of one of those ilicit databases?

= = = =

Dylan said you had to pay to keep from going through these things twice. Well we DID pay and we're STILL going through them again! B-(

B: Since this company charges by the query, too many queries from a device will likely cause that device quickly be deauthorized by whomever's paying the bill.

Aren't we talking about the Federal Government's Homeland Security boondoggle department? Somehow I doubt that breaking the US budget is an issue.