> A Redding Police Department officer in 2021 was charged with six misdemeanors after being accused of accessing CLETS to set up a traffic stop for his fiancée's ex-husband, resulting in the man's car being towed and impounded, the local outlet A News Cafe reported. Court records show the officer was fired, but he was ultimately acquitted by a jury in the criminal case. He now works for a different police department 30 miles away.
When people say "I don't see why privacy matters, I have nothing to hide" this is the exact kind of edge-case I always think about.
The problem with a lot of these massive surveillance systems is that a lot of people end up with access to them, and some of those people may not be trustworthy.
In this case, your ex-wife gets engaged to a cop and now they're abusing their access to databases to cause you harm.
(That note that "he now works for a different police department 30 miles away" is such a toxic aspect of American policing: cops who get fired for stuff like this inevitably end up in the exact same job somewhere else.)
When people say "I don't see why privacy matters, I have nothing to hide" this is the exact kind of edge-case I always think about.
The problem with a lot of these massive surveillance systems is that a lot of people end up with access to them, and some of those people may not be trustworthy.
In this case, your ex-wife gets engaged to a cop and now they're abusing their access to databases to cause you harm.
(That note that "he now works for a different police department 30 miles away" is such a toxic aspect of American policing: cops who get fired for stuff like this inevitably end up in the exact same job somewhere else.)