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FBI Accused of Abusing Criminal Database
Peace protesters were unable to leave the country to speak in Canada because their names had been added to a database of criminals. There's a serious due-process violation here because a listing in this database is equivalent to an "infamous" conviction. "'The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies,' says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. 'The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country... The list is supposed to be for felony and serious misdemeanor offenses. We don't qualify — it's for sex offenders, foreign fugitives, gang violence and terrorist organizations, people who are on parole...'"
To me, it is like the boy who cries wolf. If the FBI puts out "criminal" warnings on too many peace protestors, then the international criminal database will start ignoring FBI criminal warnings, allowing true criminals to exit the country and get away from prosecution. Way to go boys!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
If it can be abused, it will. No news here. I'm sure a DNA data base will never be abused either. America is becoming a fascist nation. It's not there yet, but it's heading in that direction.
The thing is, not everyone who gets arrested normally gets put on that list. It's not supposed to be a comprehensive list of everyone who's ever been arrested, or everyone who's ever been charged, or even everyone who's ever been convicted of a crime. It's supposed to be a list of dangerous criminals. Now it's not.
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A few years ago, a US anti-war activist named Scott Parkin was seized in the streets of Melbourne, Australia, on his way to a seminar on "non-violent resistance", detained for a week and deported as a "threat to national security", on the basis of intelligence which has still not been made public. Could this database have been the intelligence in question?
... I was not that long ago thinking about taking up a job in the US and moving there! I'm glad I didn't, as I really don't like what the US has become over the past few years under the Bush administration. I hope the next election will bring some change, but I fear Americans will just elect another candidate based on whatever the media is feeding them, not what the candidate is actually about. Still I am hopefull enough Americans have learned their lesson, and will take a different course! I've been to the US many times, and the people I've met are great, too bad some rotten apples managed to take control of the country!
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Congratulations all you non-voters who have kept these people in power for so long. Now that everyone is safe, don't you feel much better?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country"
..."
"It's outrageous that Canada is turning away peacemakers
Fix your own government and your own government database before you complain about someones else's government.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
As a sidenote, yes, Canada has recently been getting extremely picky about letting people with criminal records into the country, even petty crimes and decades old DUIs.
From Article:Huh? What? When did we annex Canada? I'm sure there's some Canadians that this statement would piss off - they're quite capable of running their own country, they don't need Bush's help. Besides, why would Bush be working to make it more difficult for US Citizens to enter Canada?IE you're troublemakers, therefore the border agents were quite right to deny you entry.It looks like it's proper for you to be listed:
1. Individuals who have been fingerprinted and whose criminal history
record information has been obtained.
Any arrest is generally for at least a 'serious misdemeanor'. Minor misdemeanors get a ticket and a court date.
I don't read AC A human right
...if they want to have their names removed from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, which appears to be what the Canadian officials pulled. The NCIC "is provided by the FBI, federal, state, local and foreign criminal justice agencies, and authorized courts." Thus, the NCIC is made up of FBI data and data provided to the FBI by other government organizations. To correct a record in this database, "the subject of the requested record shall request the appropriate arresting agency, court, or correctional agency to initiate action necessary to correct any stated inaccuracy in subject's record or provide the information needed to make the record complete." Unfortunately, accessing the record in the first place can be a challenge; it looks like it requires being fingerprinted and making the request through a law enforcement agency that has access to the record. More information is available here.
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/is/ncic.htmI worked as an Immigration Officer with the Canada Border Services Agency. My duties included evaluating whether individuals were admissible to Canada based on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The following is my personal opinion and I don't represent the Government of Canada. Also, this is not legal advice and I accept no liability.
Yes, we do have access to NCIC the FBI criminal database and we do use it as supporting evidence when we're determining if someone is inadmissible to Canada based on criminality. However, I never seen anything in the database that is not: (a) an arrest record, (b) a record of court proceedings, or (c) a warrrent/lookout/restraining order.
I can tell you that "listing in this database" is only equivalent to "a conviction" when it says exactly what you were charged and convicted of. For example, it will show you were arrested for Assault on such and such date. The next record will show that you appeared in court on such and such a date. It will then show the judge's opinion, followed by a sentence if you were found guilty.
The only ambiguity arises when the offence is not a serious misdemeanor. The problem occurs because it is up to the individual state court's to file the necessary paperwork with NCIC to have the information put into the database. Sometimes these clerks are busy and backlogged and never get around to inputting the judgement of the court into the database. In that instance, it will show you were arrested for "driving while intoxicated" but will not show if you were found guilty or not guilty. In this case, the onus is on the individual entering Canada to prove that they are not inadmissible based on criminality. The reason is that we officers are making a decision on the balance of probabilities and having evidence of possible criminal activity usually outweighs the individual's word.
I have never had someone's criminal record simply say "Peace Activist" or something equally silly. Unless you were convicted of a criminal offence, or it's reasonable for me to believe you have, then you are not going to be refused entry for criminality.
The above may contain some errors or it may be unclear. I don't have time to proofread it before work.
Another bad thing is that it seems that these people can't actually run the government well, they only they are capable of doing correctly is character assassination, whether that be republican political opponents or civil rights activists. They're fucking incompetent in doing everything else. How long must we endure this? Oh yeah, it's right here.
Now I wonder if the next president will reverse this trend? If you listen to the Republican candidates, all they seem to care about perpetuating the policies that are ruining our government. The democrats seem like they're more level-headed, but I wonder if they have the courage to change the status quo, because they haven't done a damn thing since gaining congress. Where's Roosevelt when you need him?
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Oh, do shut the fuck up. Terrorists? Man, let's just throw that label on anyone whose speech we don't like. Disorderly conduct? "Oh bloody hell guvnah! Those people's conduct, it's disorderly!"
Do you just conveniently forget that the great moments of this nation's history were acts of resisting arrest, vandalism, and disorderly conduct".
Do you remember those damn Boston Tea Party Terrorists?
Do you remember when that pesky negro wouldn't learn her place?
What a sad day when I have to remind someone that not only was this country founded in protest, protests were still needed 200 years later because this nation still wasn't as great as it needed to be. You have zero concept of your nation's history, yet you have the nerve to suggest that resisting arrest is itself bad behavior?
Yeah, because theres nothing wrong with the concept of having to sneak into PUBLIC buildings where PUBLIC OFFICIALS have their meetings after being elected by their PUBLIC. If you can't immediately see whats wrong with that idea, then you should go move to some country like Sierra Leone because you have no goddamned idea what it means to live in a democracy, a nation OF THE PEOPLE.
Protesters == troublemakers, huh?
Do you even know any of your country's history? If your founding fathers hadn't protested your country would never have been born. Sometimes people have to make a stand based on their morals, and if they have the balls to do it non-violently then they deserve your respect.
It's quite simple - any country that treats dissenters as criminals is in danger of becoming a totalitarian state.
And personally - I don't think a DUI can EVER be considered petty.
Years ago, I think it was during the first Clinton campaign, a russian reporter commented that with the two candidates, the requirement that questions be submitted in advance, the carefully screened events etc etc, it was becoming more and more like the USSR elections he used to "report" on before the collapse.
This is NOT a slam against the US, most countries are going through this at the moment. It isn't even about any polical leaning, Labour in Great Britian is supposed to be left. It just seems as if we seem destined to go to more and more restrictions on our freedoms, in the name of protecting us. Except that it never seems to be about us, but rather the people already in power.
That is not what has me worried. What worries me is how little the comman man cares about it all. Bread and Circusses, it really seems true. Give them reality tv, and the masses will keep queit. Move people vote on Idol then on elections. Starlets get more news coverage then the war.
What I think has happened is that we have led the press become too commercial, they were supposed to be the watchdog of the goverment, instead we allowed them to become slaves to the dollar, worried about ever increasing viewing figures/profits instead of reporting the news.
Paranoids don't help, sometimes I think they are a plot in themselves, by coming up with insane theories while the simplest is simply that the fast majority of news outlets are owned by just a handfull of people.
And who is going to report on the press going bad? The press? It is all a simply slippery slope. Where does it end? The rush to have scoop first, leads news outlet after news ooutlet to report stories that later turn out to be false. Some people even put scams up in order to prove this and NEVER FAIL. Does the media do anything with it? Holland has had one recently, how many reporters/editors were fired? None.
The first time a reporter agreed not to ask a question duing a press conference that led to now questions having to be asked in advance all the way to staged FEMA press-conference.
But hey, there is good news, in the 2008 elections, old USSR reporters can relive the old times.
The dutch news is a prime example, the intros have gotten longer and flashier, total airtime has shrunk, what time remains is now wasted on pre-views and recaps of things that are in that same news program, more time is spend on weather and sports. It was during gulf war 1 that the dutch news had a 5 minute segment of the queen opening some art exhibit. The US got Britney Spears, we got Maxima, no dear news editor, a new royal being born is NOT headline news, it is at best a human interest story, worth no more then a 20 second segment at the end of the news.
If you want to see why democracy is failing, watch the news. It will become painfully clear when you realize that the actuall NEWS content is starting to approach zero.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you ever compare video footage of the toppling of Saddam's statue in Bagdad with the video footage of the fall of the Berlin Wall, you might understand what I mean: The people watching the Saddam Statue falling could have also been watching the demolition of an old building on a construction site. It was just something to watch, but nothing to cheer about. The overall feeling was bleak, with some apathy and a little bit mocking about the 12 youths who were trying to actually get the statue down, which didn't work until an U.S. tank was gong to help by pulling the statue down.