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Across US, Police Officers Abuse Confidential Databases (ap.org)
Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker, reporting for Associated Press:Police officers across the country misuse confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work, an Associated Press investigation has found. Criminal-history and driver databases give officers critical information about people they encounter on the job. But the AP's review shows how those systems also can be exploited by officers who, motivated by romantic quarrels, personal conflicts or voyeuristic curiosity, sidestep policies and sometimes the law by snooping. In the most egregious cases, officers have used information to stalk or harass, or have tampered with or sold records they obtained. No single agency tracks how often the abuse happens nationwide, and record-keeping inconsistencies make it impossible to know how many violations occur. But the AP, through records requests to state agencies and big-city police departments, found law enforcement officers and employees who misused databases were fired, suspended or resigned more than 325 times between 2013 and 2015. They received reprimands, counseling or lesser discipline in more than 250 instances, the review found.
Am I just paranoid, or does it seem that everywhere personal data is collected, it is abused?
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Power without oversight is being abused? For real? That must be a first in human history!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, funny. Except all these databases keep getting approved by frightened idiots afraid of "the browns" who frankly don't believe their police will ever actually use the unconstitutional powers they've given them against THEM.
or punished by administrative leave with pay (vacation)
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
That's *if you get caught*. More likely, if you get caught more than once or twice, or get caught in some really egregious violation (like bulk selling the data).
Perhaps "a significant number" do get caught, but is that 90% or only 1% of the total occurances? I'd lean more towards the latter. What are the odds of getting caught the first time you do it?
"the browns"
what you got against Cleveland?
Of course they are abusing database access they are abusing PEOPLE!
Wouldn't this fall under CFAA?
People with power and everybody else are like children.
If your kid steals a cookie and you don't do anything, he will keep stealing cookies. He then will not steal them, but just take them. First you ask, then you beg and then you yell. He will still take the cookies.
Put that kid on a timeout once and 99% of the kids will stop stealing cookies. The other 1% needs to be learned in other ways. But what will happen is if you put these together, the 99% will be an influence of the 1% and prevent the 1% of stealing the cookie.
What have these kids learned? They have learned that there will be consequences. To be fair, sometimes the consequences are worth it. I would gladly stand in timeout for a GREAT cookie.
However never getting a reprimand is the cause of the problem of escalated cookie stealing.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Well his spin-off was rather bland and boring.
Not just law enforcement. It's why you shouldn't store private data unencrypted on cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive. Like Ned from GoT thinking a piece of paper signed by the king was going to protect him, you're a fool if you think some company policy prohibiting employees from perusing client data is going to protect you. Those cloud services really should be offering client-side encryption as a standard feature. That they don't should tell you that they are making money by browsing through your files to glean data about you that they can sell to others.
I work at a hospital. We audit people's access to medical records. You can be, and people have been, fired for looking at their own medical record or the medical records of their minor children when that access was made in a way that does not directly relate to their job. You are required to ask for the information the same as any other patient.
If only we could spread that kind of accountability and auditing...
Well, that access could be abused and apparently with no worse penalty than losing a job they clearly shouldn't have had in the first place, for one thing.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The earth is round!
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
The solution is pretty simple, but often skipped:
1) The reason for every search should be required and logged by the searcher. Example: "Related to case 12345, this person was a close match to the suspect description given by clerk at robbed market, who was interviewed by officer 84923 on Aug 7th." (In practice short-cut lingo can be used to reduce typing.)
2) The logs be randomly spot-checked by an auditor(s) who verifies the reasons given by interviewing the person(s) who searched.
3) The depth of the investigation will vary such that some will be pretty thorough. (Not every spot-check can be deep, but make enough deep to keep users on their toes.)
4) Those who've failed past audits or enter poor records are audited more often.
This won't catch every violation, but greatly reduces it because the search-user doesn't know which search will be audited and how deep the audit will be.
The reason this is not implemented is that governments and/or tax-payers don't want to pay for logging features and auditors.
Table-ized A.I.
World hunger is over because you ate today, too. Just because you don't see police brutality doesn't mean it's not infesting every police force in the country like a disease. Follow copblock or similar, watch all the videos. It's non-stop.
Somehow all the Trumpies on here are going crow at the injustice of this kind of abuse yet fail to see how it is directly analogous to the Stop and Frisk tactics that their hero repeatedly and strenuously advocated during Monday's debate....
Clarification:
Re: "The logs be randomly spot-checked by an auditor(s) who verifies the reasons given by interviewing the person(s) who searched."
Rewrite: "The logs be randomly spot-checked by an auditor(s) who verifies the reasons given by checking existing records, and interviewing the person(s) who searched if any discrepancies or gaps are found."
Table-ized A.I.
Back when I was working at a call center (processing credit applications for several different companies) we had access to credit reports. If we looked up someone's credit report that was not applying for credit, it was immediate termination. I couldn't even look up credit reports for people that had the same last name as myself. If that situation came up, we had to transfer the application to a different service rep.
Years later, I worked at a hospital. They had similar restrictions and consequences regarding patient records due to HIPPA regulations.
I wish this were true, but it is not. It is a bold face lie and you know it. There are too many videos online of people who are unarmed and not resisting getting shot for no reason at all other than they were the wrong skin color and looked "scary".
Pro tip: if you are scared of a certain human race then don't be a cop. Cops only serve to protect themselves and their superiors. It is not longer about protecting citizens. The same reason cops no longer have beats.
I heard an anecdotal story about the owner of several Wendy's franchises had issues with people stealing ketchup packets. So they decided to keep the packets behind the counter and patrons had to ask for them. Abuse went down by some huge number.
I think officers have to radio into dispatch all the time (any time they pull someone over, see something suspicious, etc). Database access should be a 2-person deal. Dispatch gets a popup of searches the officer is doing when the officer radios in and dispatch has the opportunity to flag any suspicious access. I think just knowing someone is readily watching would greatly reduce abuse.
The databases in question hold information such as driver licenses, car registration, criminal histories,warrants, missing persons, etc. In Ohio the main law enforcement database is LEADS which also ties into national criminal justice databases, Access to LEADS is regularly AUDITED. People who misuse it are routinely prosecuted. These databases are very important to public safety. You can never prevent misuse, but you can hold users accountable for their use of the system.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Of course they do. Funny thing about power, it corrupts. I have little respect for authorities anymore. I miss my country of old...
Police are NOT dangerous, unless you make yourself a target by refusing to comply or acting like you are dangerous to the officer.
I think what you meant to write was, "Police are NOT dangerous, unless you happen to cross paths with them."
Yes, they keep us safe. Sometimes, though, they're the kind of people they should be keeping us safe from.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
A nation-wide one that permanently keeps track of the psycho bullies that do all that the TFA mentions, along with the more generally-accepted assaults and murders they conduct that are rarely punished. Most of the time, these a-holes are told if they resign, they won't be prosecuted. Then, they just move across the country, or even just one desperate little burg over and they setup up their sadistic snuff career all over again.
We talk about serial killers and offenders, but the ones we need to talk about AND TRACK are the serial abusers in LEO.
And a review of each use with a case number as a cross reference....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
You display ignorance and a misunderstanding of statistics.
Police are not angels, they are human beings. They are almost EXACTLY as honest as your average employed civilian. Studies show that 96% of them are not criminals, with another approximately 10% doing unethical but not clearly illegal things (such as 'not following protocal').
You look at that and stupidly say wow, 96% is great.
The rest of us look at that say 4% crooked means one in every 25 cops is an outright theif, and 10% shadey means that if you walk in to a police station and you will see a shady cop in every single squad room.
We realize we need to write the laws based on those 4%, not the 96%.
We also realize that that 96% - they are not the ones that end up shooting unarmed civilians. When a cop hits the news for questionable behavior, the odds are not 4% crooked or even 10% shady, but more like 30% crooked and 70% shady.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Make their job easier by not acting in ways that get interpreted as threatening and you are more likely to walk away, even if an officer is having a bad day.
Right, just don't move too quickly. Or too slowly. Don't move towards the officer. Or away from the officer. Don't just stand there. Don't speak too loudly. Or too softly. Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't be too quiet. Don't use that tone. Any tone. Or monotone. Don't hold your hands too low. Or too high. Or too concealed. Or too out on the open. Or too pointy-pointy-bang-bang. Or with an object in them. Or near an object that you could possibly grab. Or near an obscured area where there could possibly be an object that you could possibly grab. Just don't have hands. But don't not have hands either, because that could be considered threatening. Don't be facing away from the officer while wearing headphones. Or while deaf. And don't make eye contact. Or avoid eye contact. Don't wear a belt with a shiny buckle. Or let your pants hang down too low. Don't have any disability that prevents you from complying exactly as the officer expects. While you're at it, don't be or do anything other than what the officer is expecting. And don't be near any person doing any of these things. See, easy!
Or just stay as far away from the police as possible at all times. Just about anything could be considered "threatening" to an officer, so whether or not you walk away alive is largely out of your hands. Treat any unfamiliar police officer like a wild animal that could tear you to shreds at any moment without provocation. You shouldn't have to, but that seems to be the only way to stay alive.
or a desk job with plenty of overtime and take home 6 figures for that year.
My ex-brother in-law would use his seniority to work Christmas night and New Years when it fell on a weekend. One night == a week of pay: nighttime pay, weekend pay, holiday pay, ... all at time and a half or more ....
Well, that money was going to go to someone who had to man that shift. A worse violation would be if he never had to serve the holiday shifts so he could be with his family, but forcing the guys with less seniority to always take them.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Yes, but they don't deserve to make that much money for one night of work.
Hospital workers have to cover holidays too, and they don't win the lottery when they take that shift.
I don't think you understand what money is. The government has as much money as it chooses to print. Money is not value, and conversely.
Now if you'd just held the line at power you would have had a good point, but then "pay your fair share" would have seemed irrelevant.
N.B.: There *is* a relationship between money and power, but it's not a direct relationship, and an absolute amount of money has no particular value. What has value is what you can buy with it, and that depends on the total amount in circulation, how fast it's moving, etc., etc., etc.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...corruption universally. If you work for the government or one of its contractors, you should be filmed at all times, and have all your texts and emails monitored. A parallel law for the private sector should kick in for executives.
Is that intrusive? Yes, that's the point. Would it work? Not perfectly, but it would knock out a lot of casual corruption and catch quite a few of the more egregious abusers, particularly in the defense industry and the three letter agencies.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
And addendum:
The above doesn't describe all police officers, but you have no way to tell which ones it does describe.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"is this chick I met last night trying to scam me?" Is almost never a legitimate question, and if it ever is, there are legitimate ways to verify it. I mean, when does that happen (when the dude isn't a willing participant)?
The police officer's union is almost always worth blaming. So are a few others. In this particular case I don't really see that much wrong with it. Those are times most people don't want to work, but somebody's got to.
The problem is, some unions are excessively powerful, and others are so weak that they can't negotiate with their "adversary". And adversary needs to be in quotes, because many of them are in collusion with the bosses.
I don't have a good answer, but the breaking of (most) unions has just yielded unreasonable power to the corporations. Not that the unions always supported the consumers...(I said I don't have a good answer, there are lots of different situations, and most of them have multiple conflicting goals that need to be fairly balanced. But I can sure recognize that the current system is less than ideal.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
That's kind of like the catholic church defense, where they say priests aren't statistically more likely to sexually offend than anyone else. Well, OK, sure, but really? They can't just shoot for good enough when they have extraordinary power/access.
Also, those 96% are only good guys if you don't count how they won't "rat" on their brothers in blue and will defend them in spite of obvious evidence.
We also realize that that 96% - they are not the ones that end up shooting unarmed civilians.
No, but an overwhelming majority of them seem to be the ones who doctor their reports and lie in court to cheat justice for the 4% that end up shooting unarmed civilians. Most non-police wouldn't participate in coverups to let their co-workers get away with murder, yet every unjustified police homicide seems to have elements of a coverup surrounding it.
Obstruction of justice, perjury, and accessory to murder may not be quite as bad a crime as murder, but the enormous percentage of police who seem to be alright with committing them aren't "almost EXACTLY as honest as your average employed civilian". The police departments are either selecting for people more likely to cover up major crimes committed by fellow officers or they are training them to do so. That behavior is way more rotten than your ordinary person is comfortable with.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
The solution is pretty simple, but often skipped: ...
1) The reason for every search should be required and logged by the searcher.
2) The logs be randomly spot-checked by an auditor(s) who verifies the reasons given by interviewing the person(s) who searched.
But to check it the auditors need detailed access to the records. So who audits THEM?
This kind of question has been asked repeatedly since at least the Roman Empire.
(The U.S. answer to "Who guards the guardians?" , at least for direct abuse of person under color of law, is the Fourth and Fifth amendments and the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine: Fail to follow the law and you don't get a conviction, because misbehaving police are FAR more of a problem for the population than even a lot of violent private-enterprise crooks going back to work. But while it does reduce the incentive, it doesn't block the behavior.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Police are NOT dangerous, unless you make yourself a target by refusing to comply or acting like you are dangerous to the officer.
If a police officer walks up to you, they now own your time, right? And so whatever they want you to do, you now have to stop, and do whatever they say, or they have the right to shoot you, even if you weren't breaking any laws. Am I clear?
The officer doesn't want to shoot anybody if for no other reason than the piles of paperwork it causes, but they also just want to get home to their families safe at the end of their shift.
"Wow, paperwork, what a drag. Forget about the poor bloke that I just shot, and his family, me getting back to my family is much more important, because, well, I'm a cop!"
Make their job easier by not acting in ways that get interpreted as threatening and you are more likely to walk away, even if an officer is having a bad day.
Making their job easier is now my job, and allows me the possibility of walking away. And if an officer is having a bad day, that should grant him/her an allowance. Not me though, because, well, I'm not a cop. Cops should never take into consideration that we're all humans and everyone has bad days.
Treat them with respect, even if only to protect yourself, because they are only human and make mistakes.
Again, treat them with respect, to protect yourself. Because hey, maybe they're having a bad day, and shooting you just relieves some tension. I mean, they're only human cops. You're just a human non-cop.
In the vanishingly few instances where an officer makes a mistake in judgment, most departments are quick to correct the failure.
You obviously haven't been watching the news in the last 5 years.
My advice is to choose to live, don't get yourself shot by getting crosswise with the police today, so you can complain and get the problem addressed when it's all over.
The problem today is a combination of how we discipline (or lack thereof) people when they're children, and how we discipline people when they're adults. Of course, I'm assuming that you'd be okay with a teacher shooting a child at school who has an attitude because, well, authority.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
What is money if not a measure of value?
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
They're just like everybody else. Employees at all kinds of jobs do similar things.
If you expect cops to be different, you don't know much about humans.
I've often wondered how useful these databases truly are, like driver licenses and automotive registrations. I had a discussion once where the need for driver licenses came up. I think it had something to do with illegal immigrants driving. So I thought I do some searching on the internet on how many people drove without licenses. The truth is that no one knows and very few people have enough information to even estimate it. There could be 10 million unlicensed drivers out there, give or take about 40 million.
What is clear is that unlicensed drivers tend to get in more accidents. This is not surprising. People with a habit of drink driving will eventually lose their license or die trying. Those that are lucky enough to survive having their license revoked will simply drive without a license. There is no requirement to have a license to drive to own a car. I'm not even sure one needs a license to insure the car either, not that a lack of insurance is going to stop these people.
Now we see police officers abusing these databases for their own personal amusement or enrichment. I say we just get rid of the licenses.
The question then inevitably comes up, if we don't license drivers then how do we (the state, the public, whatever) know that people (you know, not me and you, those other people) know how to drive. I say that every day is a driving test, people that fail will be pulled over by law enforcement. Those that are repeat offenders get noted in a database, and if serious enough of an offense they get put in jail. I just said "database" didn't I? Yes, I did. The database is only of offenders, not all drivers. What if a person gets in an accident or causes problems, how will we know who they are? Same way we do it now when people drive without a license. We can ask them their name. If that's not good enough then ask for some identifying document, like a voter registration card (which in my mind is about the only thing honest citizens need a photo ID for). If that's not good enough then haul them to the station, take their picture, take their fingerprints, and make them sit in a cell until all the paperwork goes through.
What about commercial drivers? Do you want the people driving school buses to not have licenses? What of people hauling radioactive waste? I can imagine quite the competitive business in issuing driving certificates, the local community college does this already as I see their trucks on the interstate with a big yellow "STUDENT DRIVER" sign on the trailer and tractor. If a shady certificate agency is issuing certificates in bad faith then they will lose customers real quick. When it comes to people driving for the government there are driving schools run by government agencies already, like the military driving school at Fort Leonard Wood. I'm not sure how that works but anyone that graduates from there gets the equivalent of a commercial driver license. If it's really that important then we already have the schools and certifications for it. For people driving themselves and their family they should not need a license.
Another note on the driving education, the local community college offers classes for passenger vehicles too. I saw four different course types on their website, commercial, "drivers ed" (two kinds here, "high school" and "AARP"), RV training, and "mandated" (as in people with OWI that are court ordered to take a class). It's not like there is a lack of driver training. What's going to force people to take the training if we don't have licensing? How about not getting pulled over for not obeying the traffic laws? As if there is any enforcement now. Remember where I started? Nobody knows how many unlicensed drivers there are now. This might be because the unlicensed drivers are VERY careful and don't want to get pulled over. The safest drivers out there are probably the guys with brownish skin and just downed a pint at the pub. Yep, I just played the "driving while brown" card.
Everyone uses the DMV as to
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It's hard to deny that an awful lot of the "we need these powers to protect you against crime/terrorism" pitches have a not-so-subtle racial component. I mean you say "terrorist" and most people automatically think "Arabs", despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorists in America are white.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Police unions are not at all like unions for corporate employees. The employer of the police is the government (at some level), which is elected by the people.
Personally, I don't think the police should even be allowed to have a union. Their employer, the city government, does not have a profit motive like a corporation, nor is it owned by a single person or handful of people like privately-held companies.
terrorism
noun
the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
Sounds like a pretty accurate description of, say, violent groups firebombing abortion clinics to advance extremist medical policies. Or burning crosses and even churches in an attempt to drive ethnic minority populations out of a region.
I could go on, but I doubt I'll convince you anyway.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The real problem with the Catholic church was that they protected their child abusers, including moving them around and in some cases putting them in roles where they had more children to abuse.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Fixed that for you.
You don't follow the news much, do you? When an officer shoots and kills someone without provocation, the officer usually gets off. This is changing, partly because of the prevalence of cameras that objectively record what's going on.
What that seems to amount to in practice is that trained police officers are allowed to act on impulse, up to and including shooting people dead, but untrained civilians under all conditions are required to stay calm and quiet despite provocation. My advice for people in the US: See if the ACLU in your state has a program whereby, when you record something on your phone, it's automatically uploaded to the state ACLU.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, seriously. Anyone. In the slightest little bit. Surprised?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"