Believe it or Not: The US & the UK are Assembling a Database of People that Predicts Crimes they Will Commit

I guess at this stage of the game, nothing should come as a surprise. Those who hold power have been going all out on the suppression/ oppression tip to smash on a growing population that  is increasingly angry and dissatisfied with the way things are being handled.. Here’s the latest efforts..Its called a Future Crime database..It sounds like something straight out of the movie Minority Report. As you peep it.. keep in mind the other thing that is going on..Operation Falcon which is a program designed by local police, the FBI and a number of other law enforcement types that will allow them to do mass arrests numbering in the thousands.  Yes folks this is going on in 2010. Shout out to the folks over at Holy Kaw for hipping us to this latest development

-Davey D-

How the Future Crime Database Will Work

by Shanna Freeman

Crime stories, especially stories about violent crimes, are often at the top of local news broadcasts. The news anchor explains the gory details of the murder, gives some background information about the victim and details the progress that law enforcement has made toward solving the crime . But imagine if the news anchor instead said something like, “Today John Doe was arrested by law enforcement for the future crime of murdering his wife.”

In the film “Minority Report,” people with precognition (a form of ESP in which a person learns information about future events) provide a law enforcement department known as Pre-Crime with the names of both murderer and murder victim. Images relating to the murders are transferred to a computer so that officers can examine them to get more information. Instead of being arrested for crimes, people in the film are arrested for crimes that they would have committed.

Although the movie takes place in 2054 and is based on a science-fiction story, some people believe that Pre-Crime prosecution could actually become commonplace in the future. The realm of the paranormal has not yet entered into it, but a real-life future crime database would instead be based on a number of elements that could be interpreted as pointing toward future criminal activity.

If you’ve committed a crime, some of your personal information is probably already stored in various databases. Exactly what is stored depends on where you live and the nature of your offense. But proponents of future crime databases suggest that they include information about people who have never committed a crime. As this idea has gotten more attention, so has the concern over potential civil liberties violations. In short, future-crime databases are highly controversial.

Before we speculate about all of the possibilities, let’s take a look at the databases that currently exist, starting with DNA databases in the United Kingdom and the United States.

National DNA Databases

In 2006, several crimes that had previously been unarrestable, such as not wearing a seat belt, were made arrestable. This increased the number of people  whose DNA samples were added to the NDNAD. Supporters said that more than twice as many crimes had been solved using DNA samples in 2005 as had been solved in 1999

 The United Kingdom's DNA database is now the second-largest in the world, with more than 4 million entries.

A number of those samples are from children, who have been arrested for everything from littering to skipping out on bus fares. According to Gary Pugh, the director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard, any child who exhibits behaviors that may indicate a potential for committing crime in the future should have a sample of his DNA included in the database. Pugh stated that “We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society”urce]

.In the United States, the FBI funds a nationwide system called NDIS (National DNA Index System). It officially began operating in 1994. It differs from the U.K. DNA Database in that smaller databases called CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) exist on state and local levels. Each crime laboratory in the country controls which information it shares with the national database. As of 2007, the NDIS had more than 4.5 million profiles.

Like the DNA database in the United Kingdom, the NDIS started as a way to index DNA samples from violent criminals (in this case, convicted sex offenders). Gradually it expanded to include almost all convicted felons. Some states collect DNA samples from all people who have been arrested, including children. In 2004, voters in California passed Proposition 69. Within that state, law enforcement officials can collect DNA samples from anyone arrested for a felony, as well as certain misdemeanors. DNA can also be collected from illegal immigrants for any reason.

New DNA techniques and databases continue to evolve. A company called DNAPrint Genomics sells a product called DNAWitness, which locates Ancestry Informative Markers in DNA samples. The companies claim that these markers can break down the racial makeup of the DNA and help to narrow down suspects based on race. Although it can’t perfectly determine the race of a suspect, the owners of DNAPrint Genomics claim that the margin of error is negligible. Most law enforcement departments have yet to use DNAWitness, citing concerns over racial profiling.

DNA is just one aspect of building a future crime database. We’ll look at other types of criminal databases next.

continue reading here…. http://people.howstuffworks.com/future-crime-database2.htm

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Man Facing 16 Years for Videotaping the Police..A Full Fledged Police State Looms Larger

Police are pushing hard to make it a crime to videotape them.. They are making the case that even though they are public servants filming them without permission should be off limits.. This is not good at all… We been talking about this for weeks, how police departments all over the country, have been making moves to get laws passed making it a felony to videotape them. They have been citing wiretapping laws and parts of the Patriot Act.

Up to now, having video cameras has been the saving grace for many for many police brutality cases. Imagine if the murder of an unarmed Oscar Grant at an oakland subway station wasn’t videotaped? If folks recall, the day after he was shot, police released his criminal record to local newspapers and spun a narrative which suggested that he deserved to be shot because he had done wrong in the past. This information had huge impact as defenders of  Johannes Mehserle, the cop who killed Grant, have touted his criminal background as a reason to side with the convicted officer and see his action as ‘accidental’.

The push to shut down videotaping is coupled with most police departments having what is known as the Police Man’s Bill of Rights or some other Police protection law that allow officers to keep reports of violent incidents hidden, restrict them from having to polygraph tests, have their lockers searched and even have records of complaints excluded during any sort of criminal proceedings. We saw this play out during the Grant case. The world got to know about Grant past but not the unsavory things of  Mehserle who was no angel. Add all that up to this new tactic to enforce wire tapping laws and we now see the a full court press to keep citizens at a severe disadvantage.

Where might one wish to videotape the police? Let’s say we have concerns that racial profiling laws are being violated in Arizona under the controversial SB 1070. There’s a sizeable population of people who feel concerned that police will go overboard or that indviduals like Sheriff Joe Arpiao will defy court restrictions and direct officers to push the envelop and be aggressive in stopping people. Videoapes would be the best way for all concerned to keep everyone honest, but if we have wiretapping laws being cited and possible jail time being the result, this is more then chilling.

You wanna see where this has troubling effects? Look at the news Blackout that took place last year during the student protests in Iran. Many of us were upset and thought it barbaric that Iran had restricted  journalists and were beating and jailing protestors who videotaped police who were brutalizing protestors. How in the world did we here in the US get to a place where we are behaving like the country’s we heavily criticized? What will the public do when law enforcement starts putting into place new mass arrest techniques like Operation Falcon which has been damn near ignored by Main Stream media. How will we keep officers involved with that operation accountable?

I’ll leave you with one more food for thought…In recent days we learned that Google is working with the CIA to monitor websites. Does Google which owns Youtube start working with local law enforcement to restrict police videotapes from being loaded up. Police departments have been upset with Youtube stating that it puts officers in bad light and even in danger. We disagree. Videotaping keeps folks accountable and brings attention to rogue cops.

What’s even more troubling is Google now working with Verizon to cut a deal to end Net Neutrality… Imagine if we have situation where a website monitoring or video of police abuse is suddenly restricted or made to load frustratingly slow on the internet. Folks the day is coming where the flow of information is being shut down and blacked out..

Below is the video that has Anthony Graber in hot water.

-Davey D-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5bMSyJCsg

Should Videotaping the Police Really Be a Crime?

By ADAM COHEN

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2008566,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct#ixzz0vjwcZVun

Anthony Graber, a Maryland Air National Guard staff sergeant, faces up to 16 years in prison. His crime? He videotaped his March encounter with a state trooper who pulled him over for speeding on a motorcycle. Then Graber put the video — which could put the officer in a bad light — up on YouTube.

It doesn’t sound like much. But Graber is not the only person being slapped down by the long arm of the law for the simple act of videotaping the police in a public place. Prosecutors across the U.S. claim the videotaping violates wiretap laws — a stretch, to put it mildly.

These days, it’s not hard to see why police are wary of being filmed. In 1991, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) beating of Rodney King was captured on video by a private citizen. It was shown repeatedly on television and caused a national uproar. As a result, four LAPD officers were put on trial, and when they were not convicted, riots broke out, leaving more than 50 people dead and thousands injured (two officers were later convicted on federal civil rights charges).

More recently, a New York Police Department officer was thrown off the force — and convicted of filing a false report — because of a video of his actions at a bicycle rally in Times Square. The officer can plainly be seen going up to a man on a bike and shoving him to the ground. The officer claimed the cyclist was trying to collide with him, and in the past, it might have been hard to disprove the police account. But this time there was an amateur video of the encounter — which quickly became an Internet sensation, viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube alone.

In the Graber case, the trooper also apparently had reason to want to keep his actions off the Internet. He cut Graber off in an unmarked vehicle, approached Graber in plain clothes and yelled while brandishing a gun before identifying himself as a trooper.

Back when King was beaten, it was unusual for bystanders to have video cameras. But today, everyone is a moviemaker. Lots of people carry video cameras in their pockets, on iPhones, BlackBerrys and even their MP3 players. They also have an easy distribution system: the Internet. A video can get millions of viewers worldwide if it goes viral, bouncing from blog to blog, e-mail to e-mail, and Facebook friend to Facebook friend.

No wonder, then, that civil rights groups have embraced amateur videos. Last year, the NAACP announced an initiative in which it encouraged ordinary citizens to tape police misconduct with their cell phones and send the videos to the group’s website, www.naacp.org.

Law enforcement is fighting back. In the case of Graber — a young husband and father who had never been arrested — the police searched his residence and seized computers. Graber spent 26 hours in jail even before facing the wiretapping charges that could conceivably put him away for 16 years. (It is hard to believe he will actually get anything like that, however. One point on his side: the Maryland attorney general’s office recently gave its opinion that a court would likely find that the wiretap law does not apply to traffic stops.)

Last year, Sharron Tasha Ford was arrested in Florida for videotaping an encounter between the police and her son on a public sidewalk. She was never prosecuted, but in June, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida sued the city of Boynton Beach on her behalf, claiming false arrest and violation of her First Amendment rights.

The legal argument prosecutors rely on in police video cases is thin. They say the audio aspect of the videos violates wiretap laws because, in some states, both parties to a conversation must consent to having a private conversation recorded. The hole in their argument is the word “private.” A police officer arresting or questioning someone on a highway or street is not having a private conversation. He is engaging in a public act.

Even if these cases do not hold up in court, the police can do a lot of damage just by threatening to arrest and prosecute people. “We see a fair amount of intimidation — police saying, ‘You can’t do that. It’s illegal,'” says Christopher Calabrese, a lawyer with the ACLU’s Washington office. It discourages people from filming, he says, even when they have the right to film.

Ford was not deterred. According to her account, even when the police threatened her with arrest, she refused to turn off her video camera, telling her son not to worry because “it’s all on video” and “let them be who they continue to be.”

The police then grabbed her, she said, took her camera and drove her off to the police station for booking.

Most people are not so game for a fight with the police. They just stop filming. These are the cases no one finds out about, in which there is no arrest or prosecution, but the public’s freedoms have nevertheless been eroded.

Ford was right to insist on her right to videotape police actions that occur in public, and others should too. If the police are doing their jobs properly, they should have nothing to worry about.

Cohen, a lawyer, is a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2008566,00.html?xid=huffpo-direct

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