[transfer92]

I used to be analyst in a related area. I was impressed by the difference in the treatment of commercial databases (e.g. LexisNexis) and government databases that had data that was controlled under laws.

As far as the commercial databases were concerned, I don't think we were told much more than this costs money, so don't waste searches.

But as for things like criminal history searches ("RAP sheets") we had training that stressed the illegality of looking up anyone without a justifiable legal reason. We were told to log the reason for doing every search. The training materials included news clippings about former police officers who were in prison for invalid use of the criminal history database. Once a year we were audited and asked to justify a selection of lookups we had done.

All systems are faillible and can be misused by bad actors. All systems are subject to cost-benefit analysis.

But I think it's valid that we have a system of law enforcement, that it be able, under appropriate circumstances and laws and checks and balances, to gain information that is sensitive and not publicly available.