May 06, 2005
Identity Theft & Privacy: , Opinion: , Patterns in the White Noise:
Regarding the issue of national ID cards...
By Jack Grant...consider this:
May 03, 2005 The Right of MovementThe Washington Post reports that cops are using sobriety checkpoints for purposes that have nothing to do with drunken driving.
Lisa Davis had done nothing wrong. She was wearing a seat belt, was obeying the speed limit and produced a valid driver's license when D.C. police pulled her over one recent night at a traffic safety checkpoint in a crime-plagued neighborhood.Even so, an officer jotted down some basic information before letting her go, including her name, address and the time and location of the stop for a police database used for crime solving.
[...]
The details about Davis and the stop will be fed into the database, which is linked to a computer that includes arrest records and mug shots of criminals. The database allows a detective, for example, to enter into the computer the description of a car that fled a crime scene in hopes of finding a match from a traffic checkpoint.
The city's practice of recording information at traffic safety checkpoints on violators and law-abiding motorists alike -- and sometimes their passengers -- has garnered little attention since police began entering such data into a computer in 2002. Few, if any, of the more than 100 people pulled over almost nightly at the five or six checkpoints in high-crime areas realize that their names and whereabouts will end up in the database.
As Lawrence Taylor points out, in Michigan vs. Sitz, the case that said checkpoints passed constitutional muster, the Supreme Court conceded that such stops constituted a "search" as defined by the Fourth Amendment, but okayed them anyway because of the threat to public safety posed by drunken driving (a threat that was overblown by inflated statistics, BTW).Seems to me that randomly stopping motorists, collecting personal information from them even if they've done nothing wrong, entering that information into a database, then sending them on their way would fail to satisfy Sitz.
But given the way the Supreme Court has ruled on freedom of movement and search issues lately, I'm guessing that should the DC police tactics be challenged, Rhenquist and company would find a way to approve them.
Despite leaning to the left of many of those who are on the right-wing, I share with the founders of our current Constitution the distrust in the power of any government, no matter how supposedly well-intentioned.
It should be obvious to any thinking citizen that those in power inevitably see things in a different light than those with little power, to the detriment of those who do not hold the upper hand.
Is this truly the road we want to be traveling?
Technorati Tags: commentary, freedoms, opinion, patterns in the white noise, privacy
Posted by Jack Grant at 21:10 on 6 May 2005They've been trying for years now to get a national database going - I've blogged about it several times and why I'm against it... although in my blogging I've kept it to objections about the security of the databases involved. I have other objections too - you have pointed them out here... what are they going to do with this data?
I've heard too many people say - well, if it helps get criminals off the street it's a good thing... the problem is - NO database is ever used ONLY for one purpose. The real issue is - what can be done with the info and do we want the government doing it? I say emphatically NO. I'll risk it and live dangerously thank you.
Bah! I could go on forever - but I won't just add me to the list of those who are really pissed off about this little stunt.
Posted by: Teresa at May 6, 2005 11:59 PMThis is simply a part of the on-going degradation of due process and our constitutional rights. It's heavy-handed and typical in todays United States of Panic.
Posted by: Douglass Cohen at May 8, 2005 06:10 AM
