FIGURE 4.9
criminals without putting themselves in harm's way. However, the biggest boon to law enforcement by far has been the increased access law enforcement officers have had to information. In the 1970s, for example, if a law enforcement officer in New York wanted the records of a criminal in California, he or she would have to call a police office in California and have the information read over the phone. Computer databases and communications technology have connected law enforcement offices and provided them easy access to criminal records across the country. Cell phone networks and portable computers have given the police the ability to access criminal records and information on license plates and license holders from within the patrol car. Electronic credit cards networks, bank
TABLE 4.10
| AMBER alert progress, 1999–2004 | ||
| Year | Number of recovered children | Number of state wide AMBER plans implemented |
| Note: AMBER is America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. | ||
| SOURCE: "Amber Alert Progress 1999 to Date," in Progress Report on the National AMBER Alert Strategy, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, September 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/amberalert/docs/AMBERProgress0904.pdf (accessed November 19, 2004) | ||
| 1999 | 8 | 1 |
| 2000 | 8 | 1 |
| 2001 | 2 | 2 |
| 2002 | 26 | 28 |
| 2003 | 72 | 14 |
| 2004 (to date) | 38 | 2 |
| Total | 155 | 49 |
machines, debit card networks, and rental car records have all provided law enforcement with easily accessible, real-time information on where criminals have been or where they are going.
Communications technologies have also allowed law enforcement agencies to inform communities of terrorism, kidnapping, or other criminal activity in order to bring the perpetrators to justice. America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) plan is named after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1996. After her murder, Texas instituted the first statewide Amber Plan in 1999. Since then the program was introduced by the Justice Department into forty-eight other states. When an Amber Alert is issued, the regional Emergency Alert System (EAS) is utilized to tell the public about the missing child. Programs on television and radio stations are interrupted and followed by pertinent information on the abduction. All law enforcement officers are put on alert, and digital emergency signs above the highways tell anyone on the freeway where to receive more information on the abduction. As of August 31, 2004, more than 150 children had been recovered as a result of the plan. (See Table 4.10.) In one instance in Calhoun, Georgia, a motorist heard the alert on the radio, recognized the vehicle described in the alert and used a cell phone to call the police, who then stopped the car. In another instance in Lancaster, California, an animal control agent heard the alert and identified the abductor's car.
The speed at which information in the modern age can be retrieved has also aided the war on terrorism. Identifying the terrorists responsible for the horrifying events of 9/11 would have been an arduous if not impossible task were it not for electronic records of the terrorists' credit card and rental car use. The FBI was able to post a full list of the suspected terrorists within three days of the attacks, giving the White House the information it needed to plan retaliatory measures. Since 9/11 many new technologies have been designed to catch terrorists before they strike. By far the most controversial and perhaps powerful of the new technologies being developed in 2004 was data mining. Since 2001 the Department of Homeland security has spent a great deal of time and money trying to create a database and database searching techniques to allow authorities to view records of millions of citizens at once and determine if they have a link to terrorism. According to John Borland in "Homeland Security: A Global Assault on Anonymity?" (CNET News.com, October 20, 2004), the agency's latest attempt at such a system is called the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX). The system contains the data from five state law enforcement centers as well as nationwide financial and commercial data of millions of Americans. If the Department of Homeland Security manages to get the database to work, it should be able to match criminal records with financial records to assess if a person is a terrorist threat. The database holds much more information than a typical criminal database, and could be used, for instance, to do a background check on someone applying for a license to drive hazardous materials across the country. Critics complain that the database constitutes an invasion of privacy and that it is apt to bring many innocent citizens under suspicion.
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