The Boston Globe reports that the FBI and ICE sweep photo databases at state departments of motor vehicles (DMV) to run criminal searches unauthorized by state or federal law. You didn’t sign off, granting the feds permission to access your image and information without probable cause. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complain that the law enforcement agencies have done this on their own initiative, turning the land of the Fourth Amendment — the Republic of “innocent until proven guilty” — into suspect nation.
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Suspect Nation: FBI and ICE Sweep DMV Photo Databases Unauthorized
The Boston Globe reports that the FBI and ICE sweep photo databases at state departments of motor vehicles (DMV) to run criminal searches unauthorized by state or federal law. You didn’t sign off, granting the feds permission to access your image and information without probable cause. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complain that the law enforcement agencies have done this on their own initiative, turning the land of the Fourth Amendment — the Republic of “innocent until proven guilty” — into suspect nation.
12 replies on “Suspect Nation: FBI and ICE Sweep DMV Photo Databases Unauthorized”
BUZZZ Sorry – I don’t care if an unelected bureaucrat decides this is a good idea or congress passes it after 10K hours of debate. This is without question unconstitutional. No probably cause. No warrant. No Oath. No specifics. No way!
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Or how about a warrant? Isn’t this one of the things a warrant is for? Isn’t the warrant process designed for exactly this kind of weighing of the balance of rights?
In legal jargon, this sort of “just collect everything” philosophy is colloquially called a “fishing expedition”, and is almost always denied by a Judge during a warrant request.
” If you have nothing to fear, then what is the harm?” Is said by every government in history. There is more than enough tech out there to find you and see where you hide. Now, once you have been accused there is no future. Think of Jewell in Atlanta.
SCARY to say the least.Why I do not trust my government.
But why is the FBI and ICE spending time and resources doing this because we all know that illegal aliens can not have drivers lic.(sarc)
The bigger the government gets, the more corruption. If the constitution as protected by our judicial system doesn’t eventually put a solid cap on our government’s overreach, then there are only two ways this ends. We either end up in a rebellion, or we end up losing our freedom to some dystopian nightmare where people are nothing more than subjects to be used as the masters see fit.
And they want to repeal the second amendment, hmmm.
The Founders knew that people are imperfect and designed a system to minimize the harm of human imperfections. The actions of the FBI violates the 4th Amendment and any good gained by surveillance will be destroyed by the harm that can be done by imperfect people using the same system.
The current disaster of the FISA process is a perfect example of what will eventually happen if this data mining process is allowed to continue.
The government says it needs to spy on all our communications to protect us and yet none of this has resulted in catching any bad guys. People in government are too susceptible to corruption to be trusted to use power like this responsibly and no good will come out of this.
The less power the government has the better off all of us are.
It’s too late. The information is already there and growing every day, owned by the government and by big corporations who already have cooperative and/or coercive data sharing agreements with the government. The laws enabling these databases and agreements are already in place.
Warrants appear to be pretty easy for the Federal agencies to obtain. I would like to see tougher judicial standards for obtaining these warrants, and timely public disclosure of warrants issued. But with special courts, judge-shopping and secrecy rules, I’d guess that tougher rules would be only a small barrier for the agency seeking the warrant.
It’s a brave new world. And it’s not just facial recognition. Add fingerprints, DNA, banking, health, education, and much, much more. So what does privacy mean today? If the Supreme Court really believes there is a natural right to privacy embedded in our Constitution, then it is time to take the test case(s) to them.
Anyone who has been out of the country and re-entered through customs and immigration knows that their picture, fingerprints, and passports are scanned upon re-entry – ostensibly to prevent known criminals from entering the country. Who’s to say that that all that information is simply being checked against existing databases? I’d wager that they’re storing data in their databases that the DMV might not have which might also be being distributed without the express consent of the traveler. For example, I don’t remember ever having been fingerprinted to get a driver’s license in any of the five states or three countries in which I’ve had one over the years. In my personal case, I gave the feds permission to gather my fingerprints to get my concealed carry license, but there may be many travelers who are having their prints collected, stored, and shared without their consent.
“… and his name was everywhere.” –Scott Ott
That is a very unfortunate name.
A drivers license is not absolutely necessary; however, it is arguable that every citizen needs some form of formally-issued photo identification to function within the confines of modern society. Such biometric data is just as easily attached to any official ID — not just a drivers license.
That is not good, although I fully expect this and worse has been happening since 9/11. Given the level of corruption we have experienced at the top levels of the FBI and in general the weaponizing of the entire DOJ, IRS, BLM, etc, during the Obama administration, anybody who does not have a problem with this behavior is part of the problem.