Databases won’t keep you safe

As I gear up for the fall semes­ter, this morning’s news bucket brought me two sto­ries about databases.

Local leg­is­la­tor Wll Espero wants to cre­ate a reg­istry for vio­lent crim­i­nals. It’s sim­i­lar to reg­istries that track pedophiles and rapists. In dribs and drabs, other Hawaii law­mak­ers have announced their sup­port. Nor­man Sakamoto made a state­ment yes­ter­day, and Clay­ton Hee spoke up a few days ago.

Data­bases are not force fields!

The ACLU has pointed out that these reg­istries can­not keep a con­victed crim­i­nal out of a neigh­bor­hood. Pri­vacy con­cerns take a back seat when momen­tum builds for “feel-good mea­sures that do not increase pub­lic safety”, accord­ing to Hawaii ACLU legal direc­tor Lois Perrin.

Local sup­port­ers of these reg­istries believe these data­bases will only help them. But what hap­pens when a local gov­ern­ment com­piles a data­base that invades the pri­vacy of “upstand­ing citizens”?

Every cou­ple of months, some local group or politi­cian sug­gests build­ing toll roads in Hon­olulu, in place of a train. These efforts are laugh­able. There’s lit­tle space to put new express­ways in Hon­olulu, unless the new lanes are stacked on top of exist­ing high­ways. That’s a poor idea on a vol­canic island. Tun­nels won’t work well on an island, either.

New high­ways only add more cars to our roads

Mass tran­sit makes much more sense. It’s dif­fi­cult to get across town or find a park­ing space in Hon­olulu. Oahu’s econ­omy already suf­fers from the thou­sands of cars that flit back and forth to work, home and school with only one or two pas­sen­gers in each vehicle.

Many main­land toll roads offer elec­tronic tags or E-ZPasses that let dri­vers travel through an express lane at tool booths. These sys­tems let dri­vers pre­pay their tolls and avoid long lines that seem to stretch for­ever as other dri­vers fum­ble for paper money and change. Monthly and online state­ments let E-ZPass users review their jour­neys. That’s an excel­lent aid when fil­ing for cor­po­rate reim­burse­ments or income tax deduc­tions. It’s also a great way to mon­i­tor fleet drivers.

Chris New­marker of the Asso­ci­ated Press reported today on a grow­ing trend in divorce cases – sub­poena a spouse’s E-ZPass records to see where and when they were dri­ving. When a spouse says they were in Penn­syl­va­nia on busi­ness but their E-ZPass account shows a tool trans­ac­tion in New Jer­sey, cred­i­bil­ity flies out the window.

Cheat­ing spouses think no one will notice if they are some­where else

Some states will not release E-ZPass trans­ac­tion data to a civil inves­ti­ga­tion. These logs make excel­lent evi­dence in some crim­i­nal cases. Melanie McGuire was recently con­victed of mur­der­ing her hus­band, cut­ting up his body, load­ing the pieces into three suit­cases and dump­ing his remains in the Chesa­peake Bay. Pros­e­cu­tors used her E-ZPass records in court to describe her trav­els. She could have left her E-ZPass at home and paid cash, of course.

UPDATED 13 August 2007 11:05 HT: Dave Shapiro seems to agree with me.

Tagged as: ACLU, drivers, e-commerce, Hawaii, mass-transit, new-jersey, new-york, Oahu, Pennsylvania, privacy, train, USA