TERRORISM DATABASE Ohio set to add criminal records

The database will make terrorism investigations easier, proponents say.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Although some fear it is a threat to privacy, Ohio is ready to add criminal records to a growing multistate database meant to fight terrorism.
Backers of the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange think it allows police to fight crime by processing information faster and more efficiently.
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro believes in the program and has agreed to provide the state's criminal history database, which includes arrests, convictions and identifying information such as Social Security numbers, fingerprints, addresses and telephone numbers.
Other states have contributed driver's licenses and photos, vehicle registrations, driving records and other information.
Petro wants Ohio to contribute those items and any other records now available to law enforcement agencies, but it needs the permission of Gov. Bob Taft, who oversees the agencies that keep that data.
Under study
Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said the Department of Public Safety was studying the issue.
Ohio's criminal history records will be added to the database in a few months, Petro spokesman Bob Beasley said.
Ohio joins Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Utah in the system. Training for Ohio law enforcement begins next month.
Ohio police will find the database makes investigations easier, said Mark Zadra of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which manages the database.
But privacy advocates said the database's speed and efficiency means it could be used to pry into private lives without cause.
"Once this thing is built, there will be pressure for it to be used for all sorts of things," said Lara Flint, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit civil liberties group.
Pentagon program
The American Civil Liberties Union said the system is an effort to revive a proposed Pentagon computerized terrorism surveillance program. It was proposed as a way to identify potential terrorists by analyzing such information as travel and purchases.
The software system that drives the database was invented by Florida's Seisint Inc., which owns billions of commercial and public records in its supercomputers. Seisint combines some of its data, such as address histories and property records, with law enforcement databases.
The database operations are housed in Seisint headquarters, but the company promises that the operations are separate.
Information such as phone and travel records and credit card purchases will be kept out, said Seisint vice president Bill Shrewsbury.
Only data already accessible by law enforcement will be available, he said.
Dropped out
Several states considered joining the program before dropping out, citing concerns about privacy or costs. They include Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.
"The act of compiling even publicly available data on innocent Americans offends fundamental rights of privacy," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said.