Navy Database Tracks Civilians' Parking Tickets, Fender-Benders

schwit1 (797399) writes with this excerpt from the Washington Examiner: "A parking ticket, traffic citation or involvement in a minor fender-bender are enough to get a person's name and other personal information logged into a massive, obscure federal database run by the U.S. military. The Law Enforcement Information Exchange, or LinX, has already amassed 506.3 million law enforcement records ranging from criminal histories and arrest reports to field information cards filled out by cops on the beat even when no crime has occurred."

Comments

Relevant

[The Cat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Re:Relevant

[noh8rz10]

interesting point that, in addition to the problem of creepy govt mass surveillance, this also has creepy domestic military surveillance. double creeps.

Re:Relevant

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a bunch of NSA paid agents and just simply US military people (and incidentally, Russian security people too; have a look at some of the comments on articles about the Ukraine all over the internet). Just like with Microsoft's shills, since they are being paid and probably even have special automated notification systems when a new story comes up, they come straight in a the beginning and mod things they don't like to zero in the hope they never get noticed.

This means that if you have mod points then the first thing you should do is look for reasonable -1 or 0 rated comments against these organisations. They don't even have to be good; just reasonable - normal comments should end up around 1 or 2. Only after that mod up the good comments.

Re:Relevant

[fustakrakich]

If it is authorized by congress then the military can legally do what it wants to civilians.

The loophole, unlike the eye of a needle is big enough to drive your camel through:
...said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress

And maybe this is important:
The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other :means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it--
        (1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States
        within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, :privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and :the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that :right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
        (2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes :the course of justice under those laws...

Basically the Posse Comitatus Act is merely a paper tiger which basically asserts federal authority over the military. It does not prohibit them from being used against civilians. It only prohibits local authorities from deploying the troops.

Re:Relevant

[l0ungeb0y]

How is it relevant? Posse Comitatus applies only to Military ENFORCEMENT of State Laws.
The Navy in collecting this data is not enforcing anything, they are merely conducting data mining.

The GPs comment is a Red Herring and SHOULD be modded down

The Army is spying on people too

[HangingChad]

The problem is not the database, the problem is who's running it. The military has zero business spying on civilians. The CiA doesn't like the competition.

1996

[__aaqvdr516]

When I enlisted in '96, I was asked why I didn't inform anyone that I was pulled over in 1995. I was questioned as to why I was pulled over and what happened. I didn't think anything of it.

I was not issued any citation for being pulled over as it was a case of mistaken identity. Still, the Navy had a record of it.

Re:1996

[DexterIsADog]

Ya, I am pretty sure they use this information to weed out unsavories during the enlistment process.

Um, what? So they're concerned you might not be Navy material because of speeding tickets, and unfit to join the ranks that commit sexual assault?

Sounds a bit like Alice's Restaurant.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_restaurant

Data sharing applications

[Anonymous Coward]

LiNX is one of a number of data sharing systems in use today. It works with local law enforcement agencies to warehouse data across different jurisdictions so that they can see each other's data. What's strange is it's under the Navy. The FBI runs another system called the National Data Exhange (n-DEx) which does the same thing but more generally. LiNX is used more for port cities. Commercial vendors like IBM provide their CopLink product to states and local jurisdictions to share data as well (see MODEX project in state of Colorado). Some states like Ohio have their statewide data sharing system that serves to aggregate data for NDEX. These are all systems operated by state/federal law enforcement agnecies that capture when you've done something wrong. This is different from the surveillance activities of the NSA that capture information indiscriminately.

Re:Data sharing applications

[careysub]

And this business of "field information cards" is especially worrisome. A cop can write down anything on a card he likes, and since no action is taken on a card, its very existence would be unknown to you - unless he/she choses to show it you. There is no way of knowing what (mis)information is being generated about you by any random cop. One wonders whether this data, once "in the system" is ever completely, totally purged.

Data sharing applications

[rchawdry5759]

LiNX is one of a number of data sharing systems in use today. It works with local law enforcement agencies to warehouse data across different jurisdictions so that they can see each other's data. What's strange is it's under the Navy. The FBI runs another system called the National Data Exhange (n-DEx) which does the same thing but more generally. LiNX is used more for port cities whereas FBI is much more broad. Commercial vendors like IBM provide their CopLink product to states and local jurisdictions to share data as well (see MODEX project in state of Colorado). Some states like Ohio have their own statewide data sharing system that serves to aggregate data for NDEX. These are all systems operated by state/federal law enforcement agnecies that capture when you've done something wrong. This is different from the surveillance activities of the NSA that capture information indiscriminately.

Re:Navy Security Agency

[Jane Q. Public]

"Maybe they just wanted a database that was more accurate than the riffraff online investigation sites offer, it is public record anyway."

No, it isn't. Certainly not all of it, anyway.

In my state, even police are required to log a reason for looking up a license plate. Most data about the public is not a matter of public record.

Having said that: some things are, of course. The fact that someone has been arrested is temporarily public record, so that you can see whether your boyfriend needs to get bailed out again when he doesn't show up for a day. And so on. And conviction records are public. But not all arrest records remain public because not everyone who is arrested is convicted... it's a great way to discriminate against innocent people.

I think -- but I am not sure -- that convictions for traffic violations are also public. Which includes guilty pleas.