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more on FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 03:29:41 -0500
Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 03:10:05 -0500 From: Daniel Berninger <dan () danielberninger com> Subject: Re: [IP] FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers To: dave () farber net Dave, Just to state the obvious, the ratio of help to harm of an alert about Almanacs seems badly out of balance with regard to the forth amendment requirement for probable cause and prohibition against unreasonable searches. The false positive rate for characterizing people carrying Almanacs as potential terrorists seems unlikely to prove lower than purely random characterizations. As an illustration, consider a my experience spending five hours handcuffed to a chair in the Fort Lee, New Jersey police station a few years ago because of a parking ticket. At the time, New Jersey had started a policy of suspending drivers licenses when parking tickets go unpaid as a means of enforcement. I missed the warning letter among the junk mail and ended up arrested when traveling through Fort Lee. They were just running licenses plates for cars stuck in traffic against some database, but their database did not show the reason for the suspension. They pulled me out of the car and made me "spread-um" as a common criminal according to standard procedure. They towed the car and cuffed me to a chair in the station until my wife could get there with $500 in cash bail. I got everything reversed after hours of court time, but it seems government needs to spend much more time thinking about the unintended consequences of their brainstorms. The terrorists win without even showing up if law enforcement ignores the cost of treating citizens as presumed criminals. Best regards, Dan http://www.danielberninger.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net> To: <ip () v2 listbox com> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 8:03 PM Subject: [IP] FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers > > FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers > > December 29, 2003 > By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS > > > > ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers Dave Farber (Dec 30)