Thread: Illegal Aliens: L.A. Sheriffs can run fingerprints from cars

Illegal Immigrants Beware: L.A. Sheriff's Deputies Can Now Run Your Fingerprints in the Field

By Simone WilsonMon., Nov. 28 2011 at 3:45 PM

sheriff.lacounty.gov

Secure Communities 2.0?

​The L.A. Sheriff's Department is busting with pride over its brand-new fleet of "state-of-the-art mobile data computers" -- the first of which are now installed in the patrol vehicles of a few lucky deputies.

In some ways, the computers are an overdue boot into the 21st century. Turns out deputies have been communicating via dinosauric, fax-speed "terminals" from 1989, and haven't even had access to a GPS system. Yikes. So thankfully, the new mobile computers take care of all that. But not without a Thanksgiving-sized side of creep sauce:

The computers, which set the department back $33 million (guess this city isn't as broke as we thought), can now communicate seamlessly with handheld Blue Check devices to run fingerprints in the field.

Basically, if you don't have your license on you during a traffic stop (which illegal immigrants, by default, will not), your biometric data will then be zapped into a massive database of everything anyone has ever done.

​"I can use this device here to instantly search millions of people in Los Angeles County and through the FBI and other databases for law-enforcement use," says the deputy in the promo video.

A spokesman at the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau tells us that results will include "parole or probation status" and "any other 'want' in the system."

He's not sure if that includes immigration status -- we've contacted the sheriff's Logistics section for more -- but even if it doesn't, many illegal immigrants have their status ingrained into their criminal records anyway, in the form of vicious-cycle "crimes" like trying to re-enter the country, work without a visa, etc.

"If you have been involved with the justice system at some point -- if you were selling ice cream, or 20 years ago you robbed a pair of socks -- you'll be in there," says Jorge-Mario Cabrera from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

Both immigration-rights and privacy-rights advocates have been making a huge stink over the federally mandated Secure Communities program, which allows anyone passing through the justice system to be screened by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. (Example: You're an undocumented 18-year-old hanging out, aka "loitering," at a public park with your friends, and you don't have an ID to show officers. So you're hauled off to the station and slapped with deportation proceedings. Really.)

But the Secure Communities program seems a shy little sibling to these mobile, Big Brother-esque background checkers.

Which would explain the department's elation over its new toys -- L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca has defended Secure Communities to the bitter end, even as leaders across the country have denounced the program as a racist, ineffective violation of human rights.

"We had heard from a couple of immigration attorneys that this is something they were concerned about," says Cabrera of the sheriff's new mobile data computer system (MDCS). He points out that once law-enforcement officials are aware of someone's immigration status, they can't unsee it, and are much less likely to let a low-level offender go.

Most disturbingly, FBI documents recently revealed that Secure Communities was launched as a first step to what the feds eventually hope to be an all-encompassing database of everyone's biometric info -- not just that of illegal aliens.

In other words, immigrants are just the defenseless Guinea pigs in America's greater plan for all-out police state. Fun!

We've contacted attorneys at the Southern California ACLU for their thoughts on these spooky new mind-readers. But given their disdain for Secure Communities -- and their rocky relations with both the L.A. Sheriff's Department and Raytheon, the military-tech company that designed the sheriff's system -- we're anticipating a bit of backlash.

More discouraging speculation on Raytheon, via the Los Angeles Times:

The deal with the Sheriff's Department is one of many that Raytheon has in the works for the public safety sector -- seen by many analysts as a steady stream of revenue for military contractors at a time when Pentagon spending is expected to decline.

Hey, if we can't spent our billions killing terrorists in the Middle East, might as well launch an equally expensive war on the huddled masses, right here at home!

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011 ... puters.php

RELATED

L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca: Let us deport the bad guys

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-238210.html

Police device provides instant IDs

David Ono

LYNWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- There are far more criminals on our streets than law officers. As a result, it's important that law enforcement be able to identify a criminal when they have the chance. There's a new device that's helping them do that.

L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy Chris Kovac jumps out of his patrol car in Lynwood, investigating a man on a bike who, once spotted by Kovac, tries to get away. The deputy's most important responsibility right now is determining who this person is.

A once-difficult task, that is much easier now thanks to a new device, no bigger than a cell phone, called a "Blue Check."

Kovac, just minutes before the chase, showed how it works.

"This is the actual device that takes the fingerprints," said Deputy Kovac. "I'm going to get your right index finger, left index finger. And now this is automatically sending your fingerprints to the BlackBerry."

A few minutes later: "Here's your fingerprints, by the way, that are being sent," said Kovac. "If you're a wanted person, it's going to immediately give me your name and photograph of you."

Within a minute, it reports back.

"So here's you. So you had no hit, as in you had not previously been arrested. I know you were sweating it a little bit," said Kovac.

The Blue Check device basically puts a massive database at law enforcement's fingertips, with results available in seconds.

"So this is important, because often times criminals will not carry identification so that law enforcement can't identify them," said Kovac.

And that brings us back to our bike rider.

"He's saying he doesn't have any identification, so we'll use the Blue Check to see if we can identify him," said Kovac.

A quick fingerprint from the subject, and within seconds Kovac has a positive identification.

"It gives the correct birthday," said Kovac. "Check the photograph, and in fact, that is him right there."

The deputy finds out the subject does have a criminal record but is not wanted.

That allows Kovac to let the man go. In this case the Blue Check worked in the subject's favor, but if he were a wanted criminal, his luck would have run out.

That very scenario happened recently in MacArthur Park.

"Two officers stopped and detained a person for loitering," said Kovac. "That person gave them a fake name. They grabbed this device, had him place his fingerprints on there and within one minute it came back that he was a murder suspect who'd given a fake name, and they arrested him for murder. Wow."

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=6847539