National "Dragnet" Connecting at State, Local Level

Squirtle tips us to a Washington Post story about the progress and expansion of N-DEx - the National Data Exchange. Developed by Raytheon for a mere $85 million, N-DEx is hailed as a unified intelligence sharing system, which will allow agencies to share and analyze data from all levels of law enforcement. From the Post: "Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans. Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles as national security sentinels."

Re:That's cool

[siddesu]

And if you're unlucky, you may for a few years see fast crackdowns on all challengers of the political establishment for various minor and unimportant crimes (which will later conveniently preclude them from running for public office), until the day you stop seeing a lot of unapproved challengers to the political establishment.

Then one day you may be asked to cooperate for an investigation of your neghbour, or to close down your blog, or something, and when you decline, someone may produce your file and say "see, there are these records about you here, your case hasn't quite made it to court but it will if you don't help, and since there's three of them, by statute no. 22, you get a very long sentence". So, you'll have the choice to cooperate or else. For many people that may be enough pressure.

Of course, I don't think that scenario is particularly likely in the US. Still, it seems the potential of harm from a comprehensive dossier the government has on people is enough to not let them have it, or at least have it cheaply.

Re:That's cool

[rock_climbing_guy]

Well, there are allegations that top government officials have been illegally using the secret dossiers that it already has [wikipedia.org].

Re:A helpful guideline:

[tacocat]

I might lose mod points on this, but can you please explain how swearing and freedom of speech are tied together. I don't think they are limiting what opinions you are permitted to express, rather that you chose a more civil tongue to do it in.

And to accuse someone of a subversive or alternative purpose will generally result in you losing the argument because you come off sounding like an immature paranoid. Rather, it's more valuable to raise sufficient awareness that people consider the protection against such abuse a requirement. And using the historical reasons for breaking up the FBI, Army, Police is a good starting point. But if they can address the abuse, then they get to proceed.