OneDOJ to Offer National Criminal Database to Law Enforcement

Degrees writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the Justice Department is building a massive database, known as 'OneDOJ'. The system allows state and local police officers around the country to search millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies. The system already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple in size over the next three years. The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets. From the article: 'Civil-liberties and privacy advocates say the scale and contents of such a database raise immediate privacy and civil rights concerns, in part because tens of thousands of local police officers could gain access to personal details about people who have not been arrested or charged with crimes. The little-noticed program has been coming together over the past year and a half. It already is in use in pilot projects with local police in Seattle, San Diego and a handful of other areas, officials said.'"

Comments

About time

[Salvance]

I actually think this is a great thing. It always seemed ridiculous to me that law enforcement might need to spend hours/days retrieving data from other agencies in criminal proceedings.

Re:About time

[eln]

If all it was was linking criminal databases between localities, that would be one thing. Clearly, the ability to see if someone has a criminal record and/or a warrant out for his arrest in another state is valuable information. However, tracking other sorts of data on people, even when they have not been charged or convicted of anything, as the summary seems to suggest, is a whole different kettle of fish.

Re:About time

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

However, tracking other sorts of data on people, even when they have not been charged or convicted of anything, as the summary seems to suggest, is a whole different kettle of fish.

You know the saying amongt traffic patrol officers: "follow someone long enough and he's bound to commit a traffic violation". Well, same thing with OneDOJ: collect enough information about someone and you're bound to find something to incriminate this person eventually.

Incidentally (and cutting short the Godwin Law), this is exactly what the Gestapo was doing prior to, and during WW2: they collected huge masses of information about everybody, and it was well know that they could pull a jacket on almost anybody in Germany and find enough "evidence" to arrest that person.

Re:About time

[fyngyrz]

The USSC has already established that local, state and federal government can accumulate information on people when it feels that such accumulation is in its interests, and further, that it can expose that information to the public, making a complete mockery of any idea of privacy.

The precedent was set using sex offenders and in particular, those sex offenders who had been convicted prior to the instantiation of the registry laws. Forcing those individuals to be on those lists was ruled "not punishment" and hence not subject to ex post facto as laid out in the constitution and subsequent court decisions.

Now the government can list anyone, anytime, on any list it likes, and there is nothing US citizens can do. Other lists have been showing up and causing trouble such as the no-fly list. Nothing anyone can do about that, either. Lists aren't a bad thing, according to every branch of the government.

The fact is, when US citizens gave up those freedoms to hand that little extra bit of crucifixion to sex offenders, you gave it up for everyone else, too. US citizens should have screamed bloody murder at the registry laws, you should have screamed bloody murder at any attempt at ex post facto punishment, and you should have screamed bloody murder at the USSC's ridiculous decision that "registry" is a local, state and federal interest.

The dead, smug silence at the fate of the sex offender - and the "terrorist" - has led the USA to a pitiful shadow of the freedom it once stood for. Sophistry has undermined ex post facto, habeas corpus, the commerce clause, the 2nd amendment, freedom of speech, and now... now you're worried about the feds sharing information. Good luck climbing back up that slope.

Re:About time

[yoder]

That seems to be the ultimate objective with those in power. Keep track of everyone everywhere and you will find that everyone is a criminal of some sort. Those in power can better control their people when they have leverage.

Citizen Joe Smoe: "Senator Longbottom, I am a voter and concerned citizen and would like you to vote against this upcoming legislation that will further erode our privacy."

Senator Longbottom: "You know, I would give this privacy concern of yours more of my time, but hey, you illegally downloaded three songs this year and you have a pirated copy of Windows 98. You're a criminal and you want me to defend your privacy? Give me a break."

Re:About time

[WML MUNSON]

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" -Cardinal Richelieu (French Minister and Cardinal. 1585-1642)

Re:About time

[h4rm0ny]

Yes. I wish the public would get this. We're all criminals! To add someone to the database just find something and convict the, For the few who have managed to avoid breaking any of the multitude of laws (and how do you know you haven't there are so many), the laws will just continue to be piled up until there's something you will break whether its criminalising the smoking of relaxing substances or using a PGP key that hasn't been registered with the government. When needed, you will be a criminal. You may not even need to be convicted. There are thousands of DNA samples preserved by the UK police of people who were never convicted of anything and their names are on the police database.

And sepearate to the information on the crimes you may or may not have committed could be a lot of personal information that you may not wish to be searchable by the huge number of people that have access to this.

Re:About time

[Dunbal]

So, if you were being ironic, ok.

      What I was referring to was the classic "We have found out that you have committed crimes against the state, here is a gun. If you are still in the room when we come back in 2 minutes, we will shoot you and your whole family" line from the Gestapo. We're not QUITE there yet, but soon...

Re:About time

[Artifakt]

The Gestapo started assembling records on potential subversives and criminals and even running small pilot programs where they incarcerated people as early as 1931. At first the records were focused on people many considered undesirables, and the small scale incarceration programs were often technically exceeding the boundaries German law still had at the time. Organized camps were seen by 1933. At that point, most of the people in the gestapo's record's programs and in these camps fell into one of five groups. Conventional criminals (particularly allegedly mentally deficient criminals), Communists/Trade Unionists/Social Democrats, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious groups that refused to swear oaths of allegence, Gypsies, and homosexuals. It was about August of 1937 when these groups began to be eclipsed by growing numbers of Jews as the 'final solution' was implemented.
      Massive records gathering helped greatly to implement this program without public outcry. Whenever possible, political or religious opponents were actually arrested first for some crime, even if it was often very minor, and the public records showed them as serving time for other criminal acts rather than politically related acts. While court records may show that the person was primarily given a 10 year sentence for having publically spoken against Hitler, for example, they were whenever possible given additional charges, such as illegal weapons posession, hoarding of contraband, or other dangerous sounding or disreputable charges, even if these were mere three month midemeanors under German law. The press generally reported the sentences as being for one or two of the non-political crimes, and miscellanious other unspecified offenses.

Re:About time

[fyngyrz]

You think the sex offender lists are bad?

Not really. I think the fact that people were put on them ex post facto is monumentally bad, and I think the reasoning that "registration is not punishment" is utterly unsound, and I think the trend towards calling everyone from your basic person attracted to 16...18-year old bodies to the fellow who pees in a bush to streakers "sex offenders" is nothing less than stupid, and I think the "you can never get off this list" is downright suicidal behavior for society — eventually, someone will snap over this mistreatment. But I am not against the community keeping a close eye on actual pedophiles and violent offenders for a reasonable length of time, say a year or three. At that point, I think the public record should be cleared so they can have a chance at real jobs and opportunities. A non-public record needs to be kept so that re-offense results in harsher punishment. Such as death. That's what I think.

In New York state sex offenders can now be locked up in psych wards after their prison term is finished if a shrink decides that they are still a risk.

I view psychology to date as a failed science in any case and so I would never support involving any member of the psychiatric community in any legal proceeding. People are too different for any such broad-stroking them into classes based on the opinion of known fad followers. This week it's Jung, next week its Froyd, then it's regression therapy, the blatant attempts at making bad metaphor and then trying to make them fit by force upon the public is reminiscent of religion to me. The very poorest kind of reasoning.

Re:About time

[fyngyrz]

On the plus side, the sex offender registry has been so damaged by abuse (adding scores of people who aren't dangerous, or even "sex" offenders), it will soon be to the point where there's no shame being on the list.

Ouch. This isn't a plus side. Shame, or at least remorse, is appropriate. For a reasonable length of time. Not a lifetime. In any case, the problem is that someone on these lifetime lists can't re-integrate into society, not because of shame, but because when there is a choice between two candidates for a job, the sex offender is always going to be cast aside. Even in your example, this will happen. Pissed on a neighbor's car? And the other applicant didn't? They're getting the job - not you. What we end up with is a reserve of people who cannot, under any circumstances, recover from the punishment they have received and re-integrate with society. This hammers them, their families, and eventually will turn around and bite society when someone who has been wronged in this way turns around and deals punishment back to the system, probably in more than equal measure.

Mark my words, it is as inevitable as water flowing downhill.

Re:About time

[nightfire-unique]

What we end up with is a reserve of people who cannot, under any circumstances, recover from the punishment they have received and re-integrate with society.

I'm sorry; I'm so jaded at this point in my life, I can't help but believe that this was the intent. I just think the system is failing, because they have abused it too much.

It's really simple: create classes of people that you can use as scapegoats and targets. You can't (unfairly) rule a united people, so divide them. It happens everywhere: at work, school, and in government. Find a way to split a large group of people down easily identifyable lines, and keep hammering your talking points home. One side will fear the other, and the other side will fear for their lives. As a leader, you can then step in, and provide both sides with what they "need."

Re:About time

[LuYu]

I agree with your general principal, that law enforcement agencies need to work together more easily, but this should be accomplished through IT standards and a legislative agenda. We've got NIST to do this kind of thing. Banks in the U.S. have done this with the guiding hand of the federal gov't behind them, why should law enforcement be any different?

You must be joking. Have you not read the Constitution?

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State [Article 1 Section 10 Subsection 3]

I do not see this State to State communication as being authorized by Congress. This sharing is a violation of each State's citizen's rights. If you have been too indoctrinated by the modern media, I will give you a definition: State = Country; State != Province. Each State is supposed to be an independent country with its own laws. These databases make everyone in them something akin to international criminals. Would you like to become an international criminal over a speeding ticket?

Also, just because the banks have such databases does not mean that the government should as well. The fact that the Federal government keeps files on all individuals in the US is a violation of your right to privacy. That information should be held by the State governments and should only be released with a court order.

The Federal government should be different because their job is to create a single face for the States to the outside world. The Federal government's job is not to police people within the US unless two or more States need someone to investigate multi-State criminals. The reason the Federal government is needed here is that the States are not supposed to work together.

Finally, law enforcement in the US is not supposed to be easy. The Constitution makes proving guilt quite difficult. It errs on the side of innocence, not guilt. This is one of your important freedoms. Erring on the side of guilt will result in a police state, and opinions like "databases are not a bad thing" are just the type of thing that will make everybody a criminal.

Useful Cause

[jmickle]

This surely could have a useful cause to see if people are wanted criminals in other states. Also can cut down the time for the feds to figure out what to do with you. It is ridiculous how it does take up to weeks just to pull a case number from a simple case. Consolidation seems to be the key here! hope they have a good redundant backup system :-P (anyone see record clearing coming soon? )

Privacy vs. Protection?

[Scothoser]

This is an age-old question, and one that will never be answered, I'm afraid. Is it better to give up privacy rights for the sake of better communication and collaboration between law enforcement agencies? How is this different than local police creating their own database of case files? What does it mean to have the right to privacy? These are questions that have never fully been answered, I'm afraid. The first problem is that the US Constitution currently does not , and yet it's the one right that we constantly want protected.

The other problem is that, even if the Constitution guaranteed the right to privacy, it would only guarantee that right to it's citizens. If someone chooses to break the laws governing the citizenry, they are then rejecting the citizenry. Does that mean that they are no longer citizens? Socrates felt so, as outlined in Plato's The Apology of Socrates. But is that so? Has that been determined? I am unaware of any court case or legislation that guarantees the citizenship of convicted criminals, nor of any that revokes their citizenship.

I think the first thing that needs to be done with regards to privacy concerns is to amend the constitution to allow for the right to privacy. Once this is complete, then the privacy advocates will have a platform on which to base their objections that is rooted within the Constitution. From there, other concerns can be addressed, such as the citizenship status of convicted criminals.

That being said, I support any collaboration between law enforcement agencies in protecting the citizenry, and do not see any abuses that have not already been in place since Government has been in place. The question is, are there any statistical evidence to support the collaboration in the apprehension and conviction of law breakers vs. the eventual mistakes and abuses that are feared?

Re:Privacy vs. Protection?

[fyngyrz]

If someone chooses to break the laws governing the citizenry, they are then rejecting the citizenry. Does that mean that they are no longer citizens? Socrates felt so, as outlined in Plato's The Apology of Socrates.

The problem with creating a permanent criminal class is that there is no possibility of redemption or reform. The only reasonable path is to have two, and only two, classes of crimes. The unredeemable, in which case imprisonment is life without parole, or death; and the redeemable, where the criminal's debt to society is considered 100% paid upon completion of the assigned punishment or rehabilitative course.

By releasing people back into society who have no hope of ever climbing out of the gutter, we continually increase a class of people who not only can do us harm, but have already proven they will, and who are motivated, by us, to do it ( or something else criminal) again. The motivation is simple: We won't let them do anything else.

Today, a background check is considered normal in order to get a job. This includes your criminal records, if any. If you have a criminal record, you're not going to get any job for which there is competition (in other words, most of them.) You're a permanent criminal, unredeemable, permanently evil and a bottom-feeder.

ObLOTR

[LittleGuy]

OneDOJ to rule them all, OneDOJ to find them,
OneDOJ to bring them all and in the darkness remand them
To the Land of Maricopa where the Arpaio lie.

Problematic

[spiritraveller]

The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets.

The big problem I see with this is that it encourages local police to target people (someone who gets pulled over for speeding) on the assumption that if the Feds investigated them, then they must be criminals. I tell all of my DUI clients that if they have been convicted once of DUI, they should never ever drive within ten hours of drinking ANY alcohol for the rest of their lives. The reason is that every time they get pulled over, the cop will see that conviction and will look very hard for evidence of drinking.

But this database has more than just arrest and conviction records. So it is going to cause heightened suspicion and prejudicial treatment of people who have never committed a crime in their lives.

If they can't get enough evidence to convict you or even to arrest you, then how reliable could their information be?

I see little reason for them to be sharing this information on a large scale with local police departments, except that it does give them the power to insert negative information about political activists who some anonymous person in the FBI may not like.

This is certainly not good for civil liberties, and I question its value for fighting crime.

When I was in College....

[Newer Guy]

When I was in college in the early 1970's, I participated in the Students for a Democratic Socciety (SDS). I was involved in the Boston area, and helped The Socialist Workers Party do a radio show on the MIT and Northeastern Univ. radio stations there. Some years later I did a Freedom of Information Act request for any FBI stuff. A bunch of it came back, primarily from my activities with the radio show. Now, remember, nothing I did was illegal or even immoral. Nor was I charged with any crime or even ever contacted by the FBI. All this was doe secretly without my knowledge.

I have a real problem with any bored local police officer sitting in his cruiser anywhere to be able to simply type in my name and get information about me from over 30 years ago! Frankly, it's none of their business!. Something similar to this actually has already happened to me. I was driving a car I had just bought with my old plates attached (perfectly legal in Massachusetts for 48 hours provided you have the bill of sale, etc.). I stopped for gas and when I came back from paying a cop was there who wanted to know why my plate number came up with a different car. Turns out he was bored and so he begain typing in license plates of nearby cars int his terminal in the cruiser. What's to stop him turning around and typing my name (which he got from the license plate) into the FBI search?

This gives the cops WAY too much information and power to pry into our private affairs!!

All in the cause of TERRORISM, of courser!! :(

Forgiveness Factor?

[End Program]

While I applaud the effort to improve the efficiency of law enforcement, I am concerned about unintended consequences.

One advantage of the old system was a built in forgiveness factor. Someone who had a checked past could clean up their life and move forward in life. Any headaches dealing with the system bias and mistakes would eventually become less important over time as records were destroyed or lost.

Now, you will have one central database where every legal detail on your life could be contained. What happens to impulsive individuals to get in a little trouble when they young?

Will they have a record following them around the rest of their lives? I guess your high school teacher was right when they said, "This is going on your permanent record!"

WHEEEEE!!

[rawtatoor]

Is everyone enjoying the ride down the slippery slope?

Law Enforcement Data Sharing

[rlp]

I worked on a law enforcement data sharing effort in Ohio. Most police departments are islands of automation. They'll have a 911 system and usually an integrated departmental records management system. Often they will have separate access to a very limited state / federal system. Very rarely will they tie in with neighboring local agencies.

Traffic stops are are dangerous stressful moments for police officers. They don't know if they are stopping Joe Citizen, or someone who just committed armed robbery. If an individual is wanted in the next town, usually that information will not be available.

The Ohio system (OLLEISN) was meant to address this on an statewide basis and got off to a good start. Data is exchanged using an XML standard (Global Justice XML Data Model) developed at Georgia Tech for the DOJ. Content consists of adult criminal records and is tightly controlled.

If the DOJ follows this model for Federal data and does a good job of implementation - I see this as a very positive development.

Re:Law Enforcement Data Sharing

[DutchSter]

As a part-time law enforcement officer in Ohio, I have to agree that the Ohio system is done pretty well. Absolutely everything is logged and routinely monitored. Try talking to any of your good cop buddies to see if they'll run a plate for you. Most of them will say "oh hell no!" and run as fast as they can. We had an officer get fired two years ago for abusing the LEADS system. He was running plates "on the side" for some friends of his. All went well until one day he ran the plate of someone wanted for assault. Naturally the log analyzer program went nuts when it found that one of our officers ran the plate of a wanted individual, but we had no corresponding arrest record. So it went onto the exception report and was reviewed by the Captain a few days later. Turns out he'd only run five or six plates as favors, but the Chief asked for his badge and gun then and there in exchange for not shipping the case to the prosecutor. After the guy was walked out the door, the Chief sent the case to the prosecutor anyway.

Of course, the problem with accountability being at this level is that without further review up above, local corruption could skate right by. I do, however, remember of the town of New Rome (when it still existed) losing access to the state LEADS system for something like 90 days when someone claimed that he was being harassed by the local police and it was discovered that the mayor was having the police chief look up the records of people he didn't like and do things like put BOLOs (Be on the lookout) on them so they'd get stopped for no reason any time another officer ran their plates.

Re:Before You Panic ...

[fyngyrz]

what happens when this ubergov database gets hacked.

What makes you think it will need to be hacked? You can go right on the web and check to see if your neighbor is a sex offender today. The information isn't secret or restricted. Exactly the opposite, in fact. The government thinks you should know. Odds are excellent they'll think you should know if your neighbor is a mugger or a thief or a drug user or a mad bomber as well. Or... if they might be at some point in the future! After all, you did buy bleach at the grocery store last week...

Security

[aarenz]

If the DOJ can secure it so that only valid law enforcement users can access the system, it will be fine. I am sure that most of the data that is in the system is not admissable in court, so they would have to track down the real evidence and not be able to use invalid data that was put into a database of information. It may point the finger at someone, but they will not be convicted based on wrong information in a DOJ file.

Some Concerns and Questions

[martyb]

Sigh. I don't know where to begin.

First off, I understand there is some not insignificant value to this idea. The concept of making it easier for law enforcement to gather already available information on a suspect is quite laudable. It bothers me when I hear of how a suspect in a "major investigation" was actually picked up on an unrelated offense, and let go, because the arresting officers were unaware of the other outstandings on the person. It would be nice if we could stop this from happening. In fact, I'm sure many lives could be saved. If I had a loved one who was murdered, and then found out that law enforcement had actually captured the suspect beforehand, AND LET HIM GO, you can bet I'd be outraged. But is this proposal the right way to go about it? What is the REAL COST to you and to me. Not just in dollars and cents, but also in our freedoms as citizens.

My concern is more with the implications and implementations of this concept, and how easily it can be abused.

Data Quality: People have been known to not give their correct name to the police. Some people have used multiple names (aliases, AKA, etc.) Further, given that even touch-typists will occasionally make typographical errors (and not everyone is a touch-typist, either), I can forsee a not-insignificant amount of "bad" data finding its way into the system. Someone with a name similar to mine commits an offense, but gets recorded UNDER MY NAME. See: false-positives (Type I error) and flase-negatives (Type II error) here: Type I and type II errors.

• They may not find this person when they go looking for his info - because it's NOT under his name.
• They might find this person's offense(s) should they go looking under my name - say, for a minor traffic offense.

Feed the Database: If it's so benign, I want to see a requirement that they seed the database with information on EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL AND STATE OFFICIAL. President of the USA, every senator, representative, judge, police officer, sheriff, District Attorney, etc. If your wage is paid by our taxes, then your info gets loaded into their system automatically. If there is an uproar about doing this for THEM, then maybe they should not be doing it to US. Got to stamp out any possible corruption, yanno? Besides, if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide. Right?

Log EVERY access: CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete. Storage is cheap. Log EVERY SINGLE time the data is accessed complete with the date, time, source IP, accessor's name (See the Feed the Database, above, what was requested, etc. If what you are doing with the database is on the up-and-up, then you have nothing to hide. Log it.

Prosecute Abuse of the System: Run analyses every single day to seek out abuse of the system. And Prosecute Them. Publicize The Prosecutions. Enter the prosecutions into the system. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Data Validation and Correction: It's going to happen. Some data is going to be inaccurate. (Consider the problems that exist with the accuracy of people's credit reports. And the difficulties, effort, and cost involved in getting those mistakes rectified.) How can I:

1. Get access to the information they have on me?
2. Contest its accuracy?
3. Ensure corrections are applied?

Looking ahead: Data storage costs are coming down. Some localities have ever-present video cameras recording all activity in their purview. I can imagine a time when advanced techniques exist to go searching through these archives looking for, extracting, and logging the identities and activities of all within their field of view (face recognition, scene analyses, cell phone GPS, etc.) Combine all these streams and extracts into a central DB and one can easily go trolling for perps.

So, in short, I can see some good intentions behind this. Quite laudable in fact. But, I am NOT convinced this is a good idea, never mind whether or not they can come up with a good implementation.

Far more insidious...

[gwayne]

is the ability for a system like this to create new classes of crimes and criminals out of normal law-abiding people. Just think--DA's around the country are always looking to increase their conviction rates, so they start mining data and looking for trends. The next thing you know, there are new laws on the books restricting freedoms, including

• petty vices
• how you dress (think hijab)
• where you shop
• what you wrote in your blog
• what you think
• who you associate with professionally and personally
• who you voted for last election

Each of these areas has been encroached upon by our new Socialist-Bush government.

I for one, DO NOT welcome our new socialist overlords!

Re:Before You Panic ...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You can go right on the web and check to see if your neighbor is a sex offender today.

And what if he isn't? He could still be in there because it was (wait for it) hacked.

One thing rarely mentioned on these large db's

[homeslice3]

is the accuracy of them and how they deal with individual state laws regarding protection and destruction of data. I personally have no problem with these databases - ALL of the information in them are in the public record - except case information that is sealed by a judge.

One issue of concern would be and example where I get busted at 17 for a petty crime - do my probation and some community service and have my record expunged. As far as the State is concerned, my record is now clean and the arrest shouldn't appear anywhere. The state system, by law, has to actually destroy both the paper record of the case and any data trails in the local case management systems.

What doesn't happen, I'm afraid, is when the FBI or Justice department grabs data via an exchange - it's not cleaning up or even being able to know about the expunged action - they just grab whatever they get and add it to the pile of stuff they transform - it's just has an old record of a closed or completed case.

Another issue is sealed cases - or cases that have been exchanged with these databases, THEN sealed at a later date, or has information about minors in it, or financial data in it (i.e. a divorce case might have bank records, ssn's and so forth). The intent of adding notes and other stuff to a docket for example is to help the judge, and any other official manage the case - what's not considered is the downstream effect of this (ie the document is scanned and it's added as a blob to the case record, then exchanged with a foreign system.

I see a big backlash coming, much like medical records and privacy in the legal realm - I agree that giving officers in the field all the data they need is critical, but there needs to be updates to rules and regs about how this stuff is used and what exactly can be exchanged now that the data won't merely live in the original systems and safeguarded by disinterested parties (the nerds who manage the statewide court systems) vs those who have a financial or other reason to be interested in the data.

Maybe we're being too paranoid?

[tech10171968]

After all, there is this little thing called the NCIC (http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/is/ncic.htm ) that has already been in use by Law Enforcement for decades now. Everytime you've been pulled over by a cop and asked for your drivers' license (and/or other ID), what do you think he's doing when he takes them back to his vehicle? He's running your name through the NCIC and checking for any warrants. All of the paranoia and "Big Brother" talk may very well be much ado about nothing; when a criminal is caught and processed the government collects and therefore already possesses a lot of this information, and none of it is a big secret at that point.