Across US, police officers abuse confidential databases

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://apnews.com/article/ffdedcf4db9c4240a592e57d0a6fe84c

DENVER (AP) — Police officers across the country misuse confidential law enforcement databases to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Criminal-history and driver databases give officers critical information about people they encounter on the job. But the AP’s review shows how those systems also can be exploited by officers who, motivated by romantic quarrels, personal conflicts or voyeuristic curiosity, sidestep policies and sometimes the law by snooping. In the most egregious cases, officers have used information to stalk or harass, or have tampered with or sold records they obtained.

No single agency tracks how often the abuse happens nationwide, and record-keeping inconsistencies make it impossible to know how many violations occur.

But the AP, through records requests to state agencies and big-city police departments, found law enforcement officers and employees who misused databases were fired, suspended or resigned more than 325 times between 2013 and 2015. They received reprimands, counseling or lesser discipline in more than 250 instances, the review found.

[marble falls]

1. I guess it's the 'Thin Blue Lie', now.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. It always was.

[RockRaven]

3. That behavior needs to be explicitly criminalized. The legal ambiguity cited in the article

is unacceptable.

With great power comes great responsibility.

[multigraincracker]

4. To me that badge is nothing

more than a license to steal and lie.

Not all cops, 5% follow the law and their oath.

[Aristus]

5. If confidential databases aren't confidential,

they should probably call them something else, shouldn't they?

[Iggo]

6. And why wouldn't they? They're cops!

Fuck me, fuck you, and fuck everybody else!

[iscooterliberally]

7. I got screwed over because of this shit back in the 1990s.

I lent a friend of mine a cargo van that I had. We were in a band together and we used it to haul our gear around in. Apparently my friend went to see an old girl friend. She was seeing some older guy that had money and was hiring some goons to follow her around. The goons saw her come out of a restaurant with my friend and get into my van. Back in the early 90s I didn't even have a computer let alone internet access. 'Somehow' this rich guy got all of my information off of the tag on my van. The next thing I know, I'm getting threatening notes and cards and even a dead fish on my car. I finally found out who the rich guy was and where he worked. I went and confronted him and put a stop to it. I just wish that the officer who gave him my information had been severely punished for it.

[Cracklin Charlie]

8. I think it happened to my husband years ago.

By a cop who wanted his son to have my son’s spot at second base.

He first told coach something about hubs, coach brought it up to hubs, who denied the accusations, but decided he wanted nothing to do with the situation (he is about conflict avoidance), and hubs and son left team. We later realized they told coach something that had happened to one of his brothers twenty years before that.

We found out from others that they had done the same tactics on every team their kid played on.