ABCNEWS.com : U.S. Lifts FBI Criminal Database Checks :
The Justice Department lifted a requirement Monday that the FBI ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information about criminals and crime victims before adding it to the country's most comprehensive law enforcement database. The system, run by the FBI's National Crime Information Center, includes data about terrorists, fugitives, warrants, people missing, gang members and stolen vehicles, guns or boats. Records are queried increasingly by the nation's law enforcement agencies to help decide whether to monitor, detain or arrest someone. The records are inaccessible to the public, and police have been prosecuted in U.S. courts for misusing the system to find, for example, personal information about girlfriends or former spouses. Officials said the change, which immediately drew criticism from civil-liberties advocates, is necessary to ensure investigators have access to information that can't be confirmed but could take on new significance later, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said.
One wonders what significance information that is factually incorrect or outdated might actually have to any investigation whatsoever. Apparently, however, making sure that you're accusing the right person of being a criminal is no longer a priority to our Lord High Minister of Injustice.
For example, let's just say that a crime lab in some large state -- say, for example, Texas -- has put information into the database that it later finds out may well be inaccurate. It's highly probable that, under these regulations, that information will be kept by the FBI, despite knowing that it has been officially withdrawn, because it could "take on significance later."
All HPD cases will be purged from state, U.S. DNA databases: Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford has asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to purge from its DNA database all cases examined by the HPD crime lab, according to correspondence obtained Monday by the Houston Chronicle. His request, made last week and immediately accepted by a DPS official, means all HPD cases will also be removed from a national database of DNA evidence used to solve crimes. "I guess this means that Chief Bradford has lost complete confidence in the lab and is concerned that profiles that were entered into (the state database) might not be reliable," said Norah Rudin, a California-based forensic scientist who has been skeptical of the quality of work done by the HPD DNA lab.
Judge Releases Inmate After DNA Mistake Uncovered: A Houston judge granted bail Wednesday for Josiah Sutton after an independent DNA lab determined that he may have been sentenced to 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit based on evidence processed incorrectly at the Houston police crime lab. Sutton, 21, was convicted in 1998 for the rape of a woman taken at gunpoint and then dumped in a Fort Bend County field. [...] Identigene officials said Monday that the analysis done earlier in the day on evidence provided in the Sutton case determined that Sutton's profile was not found in the evidence that they tested. [...] The ongoing retesting of DNA samples is the result of a December audit by the Texas Department of Public Safety and a crime lab professional from Tarrant County who uncovered potential contamination problems at the lab, poor working conditions and inadequate training.
One can, I think, assume that any erroneous profiles will remain in the national database, despite the full knowledge that it is in error, since it may be of later significance to ... something or other. Eventually.
Posted by iain at March 25, 2003 05:56 PM
