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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The FBI's Rap Back program is quietly transforming the way employers conduct background checks. While routine background checks provide employers with a one-time "snapshot" of their employee's past criminal history, employers enrolled in federal and state Rap Back programs receive ongoing, real-time notifications and updates about their employees' run-ins with law enforcement, including arrests at protests and charges that do not end up in convictions. ("Rap" is an acronym for Record of Arrest and Prosecution; "Back" is short for background.) Testifying before Congress about the program in 2015, FBI Director James Comey explained some limits of regular background checks: "People are clean when they first go in, then they get in trouble five years down the road [and] never tell the daycare about this."
A majority of states already have their own databases that they use for background checks and have accessed in-state Rap Back programs since at least 2007; states and agencies now partnering with the federal government will be entering their data into the FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) database. The NGI database, widely considered to be the world's largest biometric database, allows federal and state agencies to search more than 70 million civil fingerprints submitted for background checks alongside over 50 million prints submitted for criminal purposes. In July 2015, Utah became the first state to join the federal Rap Back program. Last April, aviation workers at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport and Boston Logan International Airport began participating in a federal Rap Back pilot program for aviation employees. Two weeks ago, Texas submitted its first request to the federal criminal Rap Back system.
Rap Back has been advertised by the FBI as an effort to target individuals in "positions of trust," such as those who work with children, the elderly, and the disabled. According to a Rap Back spokesperson, however, there are no formal limits as to "which populations of individuals can be enrolled in the Rap Back Service." Civil liberties advocates fear that under Trump's administration the program will grow with serious consequences for employee privacy, accuracy of records, and fair employment practices.
Rap Back Privacy Impact Assessment
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 08 2017, @06:07PM
Everyone seems to be waiting to see if a dystopia really happens - but they can't see the one being built around them. At what point do the proles wake up, and realize, "Hey, it really is 1984!" Fact is, it may be worse than 1984. At least in the book, the proles were mostly immune to the state insanity. They just worked (if they had work) bought groceries, and enjoyed the LCD (lowest common denominator) entertainment. They weren't political, so the gubbermint didn't waste much effort on them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday February 08 2017, @08:01PM
I would speculate that if people recognize a police state while it is being built around them, it is already probably too late to do anything about it.
I remember debating with a friend about the PATRIOT ACT back a freakin' decade and a half ago. I predicted this back then. I gave him, at the time two famous quotes.
1. The quote by Benjamin Franklin about Trading liberty for security.
2. The quote that had recently become famous: Meesa thinks a weesa should give the chancellor emergency powers.
It is too late because either it is too early to be taken seriously that this will lead to a police state. You sound like a paranoid lunatic for suggesting it. Or it is far enough along that raising the alarm doesn't matter because nothing can be done about it. I suspect we are now at or well past that point.
I remember I have argued right after Snowden revelations that if you build the apparatus of a police state, even if you trust the people in power today (which I didn't at the time), someday there could be an insane madman in power who now has access to this machinery.
And here we are.
It's like asking if you might have crossed the event horizon of a black hole. How do you tell? You'll know eventually, just as we all will about our current situation. But at the moment, you can't be quite sure.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @09:39PM
The average Roman citizen didn't see that Rome was falling, either. Not until the Barbarians entered their province and sacked them. (And that includes periods well after the sacking of Rome in 410.) I am sure that Odoacer and Theoderic each promised to Make Rome Great Again, too. And probably were going to build a grand wall and have the Vandals pay for it, too.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday February 08 2017, @11:42PM
Emperor Trajan is erroneously credited with the construction of several walls that weren't actually built during his reign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan's_Wall [wikipedia.org]