more on FBI Issues Alert Against Almanac Carriers

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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
>
>
>
>

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