Slashdot Mirror
Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian has a story on a woman who was claims she is innocent and was apprehended 35 years after escaping prison by a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security. Linda Darby was convicted of killing her husband in 1970 and sentenced to life at an Indiana prison but escaped two years later by climbing over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison. She knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend. In Indianapolis she met the man who would become her third husband and moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones which allowed a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security to identify her. Darby says she is innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime."
If they're being used to chase down anyone the government wants for anything, it's another step toward a police state.
That's a pretty loose view on what it was used for. The Department of HS didn't track this woman down. The database they created is a shared resource that other agencies can use as well. And kudos for that! If it weren't, then there'd be a lot of criticism (here on /. as well) about information being kept secret, and retarding the ability of law enforcement to track down criminals.
In this case, the database wasn't misused. A state police department detective was able to use the database to catch an escapee convicted of murder.
I can't help but imagine the outrage the masses would display if it were the other way around. Imagine the outcry if a convicted criminal were to repeat their offense, and it was later found that this database had information to catch them but wasn't used.
What do you consider 'crimes against humanity'? And does abortion and/or masturbation count as genocide as they both deny life to possible people?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.