National "Dragnet" Connecting at State, Local Level

Squirtle tips us to a Washington Post story about the progress and expansion of N-DEx - the National Data Exchange. Developed by Raytheon for a mere $85 million, N-DEx is hailed as a unified intelligence sharing system, which will allow agencies to share and analyze data from all levels of law enforcement. From the Post: "Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans. Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles as national security sentinels."

Comments

First thought.

[techno-vampire]

When I saw the title, my first thought was that the article was about the old Dragnet TV show and Sgt. Joe Friday. I must admit that I was very disappointed to find out I was wrong.

That's cool

[Knuckles]

If we're lucky, in a few years Congress will impose limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others will have misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans.

Re:That's cool

[QuantumG]

Well, so long as they use the information for covert purposes nothing will be done.. it's only when they use it to mount a coup that something will finally be done about it, and by then it may well be too late.

Re:That's cool

[siddesu]

And if you're unlucky, you may for a few years see fast crackdowns on all challengers of the political establishment for various minor and unimportant crimes (which will later conveniently preclude them from running for public office), until the day you stop seeing a lot of unapproved challengers to the political establishment.

Then one day you may be asked to cooperate for an investigation of your neghbour, or to close down your blog, or something, and when you decline, someone may produce your file and say "see, there are these records about you here, your case hasn't quite made it to court but it will if you don't help, and since there's three of them, by statute no. 22, you get a very long sentence". So, you'll have the choice to cooperate or else. For many people that may be enough pressure.

Of course, I don't think that scenario is particularly likely in the US. Still, it seems the potential of harm from a comprehensive dossier the government has on people is enough to not let them have it, or at least have it cheaply.

Re:That's cool

[rock_climbing_guy]

Well, there are allegations that top government officials have been illegally using the secret dossiers that it already has.

In Some Back Server Room

[Anonymous Coward]

Sits a 1U server on a rack, it's processor fan whirring away. The LEDs' blink in the dark. On the server's harddrive sits thousands of files. One of those files is listed with a unique social security number, my social security number. In that file is my history, my financial records, my political record...my life. It is a dossier on me. This server room is located in the bottom basement of some old office building, in some city somewhere's in the USA.

I have no criminal record. My only crime is to criticize the government's more egregious policies. And is the above document safe from access? Who has the key to it?

A helpful guideline:

[TubeSteak]

I'm going to quote an old post from the "DMCA Abuse Widespread" article:

Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying . They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.

Re:A helpful guideline:

[ILuvRamen]

that's not how it works. Rarely does some evil poltiical overlord try and make some BS law as a false front to do something shady. That's just in the movies. What usually happens is the person has good intentions and then someone later abuses it. That or someone hacks their system and steals all the information. Rarely do we ever see a "the government collected embarrassing info on me and put it on their myspace page for the world to see" like all the paranoid people fear, but boy do we hear the stories about way overly detailed and unnecessary databases getting hacked and all the data stolen!

Re:A helpful guideline:

[poetmatt]

Really? What part of the PRO IP act as a recent example? Or how about this "no swear word" ordinance in a California town? You'd call good intentions directly stifling the first amendment? You don't think this was the goal straight from the start, that now it has to be challenged to be proven wrong?

Re:A helpful guideline:

[h4rm0ny]

"Obscene" language is a class thing. People from working class backgrounds frequently use such language - and why shouldn't I talk the way my parents brought me up talking? Whilst people from middle class backgrounds perceive certain words to be inherently offensive. This perception is never stated to be, but originates from, the belief that such language is of the lower classes.

You ask why choice of words is necessarily part of freedom of speech, but the censorship of "obscene" language is merely the repression of the language of one part of society by another part of society. Your term of "civil speech" shows you come from or have adopted a particular cultural viewpoint but this is not necessarily universal. This linguistic division in society along class backgrounds is real and to demand that someone adopt a different subset of language in order to put forward their views is to demand that they renounce their own culture in favour of the one with more power (to some extent). It is not acceptable to proscribe words on behalf of others. I have every right to talk in the language I am familiar with, rather than adopt some other group's mode of expression.

Re:A helpful guideline:

[wannabegeek2]

Uhhhhh...

I hate to point this out, but most State Constitutions mirror the Federal Constitution.

So, have you read the California Constitution? Really read it?

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have
inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and
liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing
and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

SEC. 2. (a) Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or
her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of
this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or
press.

Sorry, but it really makes me cranky when someone uses the, "but that is a State law" argument. This is the United States of America, United being the operative word. In many cases the State Constitutions are more direct regarding our Rights than the Federal counterpart. Case in point, the Constitution of the State of Indiana.

Section 32. The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.

Takes care of that pesky "militia" subversion of the intent of the Framers, doesn't it?

By and large most Americans don't expend a lot of energy trying to understand Vertical Separation of Powers in regards to our rights, as at the Federal level there really shouldn't be any.

"Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people." The State Constitutions cannot be contrary to the United States Constitution, and in regards to the Rights granted by the Constitution cannot be more restrictive, but that's it. The rest of your Rights are reserved to your State, or yourself.

Neat concept, huh?

wait for injustice

[ndnspongebob]

Now that the all the agencies are against the citizens, who will protect us from the government? and when will they realize they have gone too far? for sure, injustice will come before change

It may be cliche, but...

[hyades1]

... if the government is allowed to get away with this, the terrorists have won.

It's extremely difficult to take over a country where everything is decentralized and/or chaotic. You might inflict damage on one spot, but all the others just keep cooking along. US problems in Iraq are a good example of this.

Conversely, a society where every detail of every citizen's life is available in a centralized database (which is conveniently located in the same place as a strong central government) virtually begs to be taken over. You have only to take over the brain, and the rest of the body politic just keeps obliviously going about its business. The only difference is that there's a new boss raking in the profits.

And to all those jackasses who like to say, "If you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of", I'd simply ask in return, "Are you really stupid enough to believe the information a government collects on you is always accurate?"

These dipshits can't locate 10 million illegal aliens, and they found out the Berlin Wall was coming down on the evening news. But you trust them to notice you're not the same guy as the one with a similar name and SIN who likes to rob banks half way across the country?

If somebody doesn't put some reins on these bastards right quick, we're going to find out there's worse things than losing a city or two to terrorist action.

It's even more insidious than that:

[Ihlosi]

'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying . They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.

Reality is even more insidious than that. They may not even be lying, but be completely honest and never use the law "that way" - but their successors eventually will.

It's just the same with agreements in a contract. Even if the original party will not abuse the terms, their successors will.

SMRT

[kidsizedcoffin]

FTA: "Some officials avoid using the term intelligence because of those sensitivities." Well that certainly is a relief.

Whereas I

[smittyoneeach]

...was speculating about some political/social networking site for extremist drag queens; a sort or "Ru Paul meets Ron Paul".
Should I get more sleep?

The tree of liberty

[leereyno]

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The only thing worse than criminals are rogue agents of the state, acting under color of authority, to undermine the rights of their fellow citizens.

Thugs and goons are bad enough, but they're 10 times worse when given a badge.

A good friend of mine once said: Most cops are NOT pigs, but an awful lot of pigs pursue a career in law enforcement. The older I get, the more I understand just how right he was.

At the end of the day, the only thing that stands between us and the would-be tyrants of the world is our willingness to oppose them, with deadly force if need be. Liberty and power are two sides of the same coin, and in the real world political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order.

Heh...

[Oxy the moron]

I've actually worked (albeit very briefly) on Indiana's part of this system, iDex. At my previous job, I worked on a police department records management system, and we had to write code to "plug in" to this National database. The odd thing about this is that we had to write our software to work in 4 different states (IL, IN, NY, SC) and each state (of course) does their data collection differently. So I'm not sure the database will be entirely useful, as some states will contribute one thing to one data field and some states will contribute something entirely different.

However, the scary part is, even if you call in to *report* a crime, your name goes into the system. I know this because our software kept track of every individual (criminal or otherwise) that was entered into it, and, to my knowledge, all data from the system was passed on to the iDex application.

It is not just in the movies -- it's here.

[soren100]

that's not how it works. Rarely does some evil poltiical overlord try and make some BS law as a false front to do something shady. That's just in the movies. You mean you think that "bad guys" never seek political power? The founders of our country would have said that this was an incredibly naive viewpoint, since the "evil political overlords" were exactly the kind of people they expected to take power, make "BS laws" and do "something shady". Which is why they wrote the Constitution expressly to try to prevent that from happening.

You really think that even though "evil political overlords" can and did take power in Germany, Russia, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Uganda, Rwanda, etc. etc, and delight in every kind of abuse possible in those places, that somehow those same "evil overlord" types are prevented from doing this in America?

What's really amazing is that the current rulers of the U.S. have publicly admitted torturing their victims and holding them without trial. They have also publicly admitted to mounting a massive campaign of unrestricted domestic surveillance, and entering into illegal partnerships with corporations to do it. Yet somehow you still think it "can't happen here" and even get modded "insightful" for it.

That attitude of "it can never happen here" is precisely why it is happening here.

Not too scared...

[kabocox]

What the heck is N-Dex?
N-DEx: Law Enforcement National Data Exchange
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ndex/ndex_home.htm

I've actually heard this term around vendors once or twice. It's on the horizon, but not being sold at the moment. Heck, we'd be happy to get out of Uniform Crime Reports and into National Incident-Based Reporting System. Trust me. Its not the cops or the police agencies that want those things. They like to keep their data in their black box and share it with no one. It's the various folks at the federal/state level and the newspaper people that like to compare how your police department is doing with the neighbors that drives this. NIBRS is all about crime stats so that those that like to compare crime stats have more columns of information to compare.

There was a program called RPIS that died still born that was one of the precursors to this. It was mainly aimed at drug task forces to share intel data. It never really went anywhere. No one at our agency every entered anything into the system.

I've heard N-Dex in connection with NIBRs. The way its talked about is using those crime stats and sort of generating a "weather map" of crime stats or at least trying to predict future crimes based on current crime trends at more than just the local level. I think that sounds really cool in theory. I have serious doubts that they'll get and keep it up though. This sounds like something the feds will work on for a few years and will die off in 5 or so years. I'll wait until vendors start pushing N-Dex as a selling point or the state suddenly requiring it before I'm interested in it for our agency.