Homestead mailing list

["Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

I can see how people who avoid contact with the police and court system 
could become non-entities in a system like that. At least until they link up 
ALL the databases (SS, financial, birth/death/marriage, drivers' license, 
etc), then there is no place to hide.

Lynn Wigglesworth

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bob ford" <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:04 AM
Subject: [Homestead] More centralization of personal records


> This press release is done in such a way that the FBI only wants people to 
> think of it as great way to catch drunk drivers.  What it is actaully 
> doing, is creating a national database, including "incident reports" where 
> you committed no crimes; from every federal, state, and 'local' 
> intereaction you have with law enforcement and other 'agencies'.
>
>  So, now, if you are arrested for protesting at a peace rally when you are 
> 18, in Boston, and when you are thirty living in small town , Missouri, 
> the local cops can know your politics, with a keystroke.  If you run from 
> an abusive spouse in one locality; and move across country.  That info 
> from the incident report follows you to anywhere anyone has a password. 
> Centalization is almost always a bad idea, because of all of the 
> un-intended (& maybe intended , but not told) consequences ....bobford\
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Drunken drivers roll down state information gaps
>
> Jacquelyne Taurianen, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 10, 5:08 am ET
>
> AP – This arrest photo from July 7, 2008, provided by the Deadwood, S.D. 
> police dept., shows Robert Earl Hood … OMAHA, Neb. – A Texas man arrested 
> on suspicion of first-offense drunken driving posted a $200 bond and 
> walked out of a Nebraska jail without facing a judge.
>
> Only this wasn't his first DUI arrest, or second, or even his third. It 
> was 44-year-old Robert Hood's fourth DUI arrest in three states in less 
> than two weeks.
>
> Hood, of Caldwell, Texas, is also known as Earl Hood. He was charged as a 
> first-time offender under Nebraska law and allowed to pay 10 percent of 
> the $2,000 bond because officials had no inkling of the other pending 
> DUIs.
>
> That's because the FBI-run national computer system used by states shows 
> only those people who have been fingerprinted when arrested. And the 
> arrests of some suspects, such as Hood, can go undetected if they are not 
> fingerprinted or if the information is delayed getting into the system.
>
> In Hood's case, the system did not show his recent DUI arrests — one in 
> Wyoming, two in South Dakota.
>
> That lack of information is allowing repeat DUI offenders across the 
> country to easily post low bonds and go on their way.
>
> And it alarms court officials.
>
> "If judges are made aware of other pending charges, it could justify a 
> higher bond to (ensure) the person appears in court," said Sarpy County 
> Judge Todd Hutton, who sits on the bench in suburban Omaha. "The judges 
> make their decisions based on the information they are provided. They 
> can't act on information that is not brought to their attention."
>
> Hutton said that if prosecutors know a defendant has other pending 
> charges, it could justify a higher bond.
>
> John Fitzgerald, a state's attorney in Deadwood, S.D., one of the places 
> Hood was arrested, said the same problem exists in his state.
>
> "The more (DUIs) you get the higher the bond," Fitzgerald said. "When you 
> see someone who repeats something so dangerous, the bond can get pretty 
> high even if it's a misdemeanor."
>
> To make matters worse, officials in most states don't often know about 
> other pending charges against a defendant within their own borders.
>
> In Nebraska, people charged with a first-offense DUI do not have to have a 
> formal hearing, but can instead pay bond according to a schedule, said 
> Deputy Otoe County Attorney Tim Noerrlinger.
>
> But the FBI is hoping a new national system, still in the pilot stage, 
> will alert authorities when a defendant has multiple DUI offenses pending 
> in other states.
>
> The National Data Exchange or N-DEx for short, is designed to link local, 
> state and federal records, said Tom Bush, assistant director of the FBI's 
> criminal justice information services.
>
> Records say Hood was arrested on July 4 in Mitchell, S.D., when an officer 
> found him passed out in his car. A test showed Hood tested 0.260 percent — 
> more than three times the legal limit.
>
> He was released on 10 percent of a $5,000 bail, a Davison County Circuit 
> Court clerk said.
>
> Hood's second DUI arrest occurred three days later in Deadwood, S.D., a 
> town in northwest South Dakota.
>
> Chief Kelly Fuller of the Deadwood Police Department said Hood's 
> blood-alcohol content was 0.184 percent.
>
> At the time, Hood's arrest in Mitchell did not show up in state records, 
> so he was charged with a first-offense DUI and released on another $500 
> bond.
>
> The next day, Hood was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Platte 
> County, Wyo., and charged with first-offense DUI. A test showed his 
> blood-alcohol content was 0.160 percent, a Platte County circuit court 
> official said.
>
> On July 10, Hood was found guilty of a first offense DUI in Wyoming and 
> sentenced to six months unsupervised probation, credited for two days he 
> spent in jail and paid a $580 fine.
>
> Hood was then arrested on suspicion of drunken driving at 8:30 a.m. on 
> July 13 in Otoe County, Neb., about 50 miles south of Omaha. His 
> blood-alcohol content was 0.081, just over the legal limit of 0.08, 
> according to court records.
>
> He was released after posting $200 bond, Otoe County Jail officials said.
>
> Simara Reynolds, executive director of the Nebraska chapter of Mothers 
> Against Drunk Driving, said Hood's case was chilling.
>
> "It is frightening to see someone charged so frequently in such a short 
> period of time," she said.
>
> Authorities are now looking for Hood after he failed to appear to multiple 
> court dates. Warrants have been issued for his arrest.
>
> Offenders with multiple DUI arrests are more common than most people 
> think, said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.
>
> Dean-Mooney calls the current system a "catch and release" program, and 
> she says changes are needed.
>
> More than 2.8 million people on the road today have three or more DUI 
> convictions, she said.
>
> "Hard-core drunk drivers are clearly more dangerous," said Kevin Quinlan, 
> chief of safety advocacy division at the National Transportation Safety 
> Board in Washington D.C.
>
> Hard-core drunken drivers as defined by National Transportation Safety 
> Board are those with a prior drunken-driving arrest or conviction within 
> the past 10 years or offenders with a blood-alcohol content of 0.150 
> percent or greater.
>
> N-DEx was designed to search, link, analyze, and share criminal justice 
> information including arrest and incident reports, incarceration data, and 
> probation data nationwide.
>
> "Anything (agencies) put in it will be available nationally," he said, but 
> the data gold mine will depend on how each jurisdiction or state collects 
> the data and what they want to report.
>
> N-DEx takes 360 data elements seen in incident reports today and puts them 
> into a master form. Agencies can then search individual or multiple 
> elements, said Kevin Reid, N-DEx program manager.
>
> Participation by all states will be gradual, with the goal of having the 
> nationwide system in place by 2010, Bush said.
>
> Submitting and receiving information from N-DEx is voluntary, Bush said, 
> but the FBI is convinced that such voluntary programs will work, citing 
> NCIC and a fingerprint database.
>
> Bush said he can't imagine agencies not using N-DEx once they start to see 
> the benefits.
>
> Oregon was one of the first states to test N-DEx, said Oregon State Police 
> Maj. Chris Brown.
>
> "It works very well and is very robust," Brown said.
>
> ___
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081110/ap_on_re_us/phantom_duis
>
>
>
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