Latin American fury as US buys information on millions (plus a Sore/Loserman connection)

The Guardian via SMH ^ | May 6 2003

[dead]

Governments across Latin America have launched investigations after revelations that a United States firm is obtaining personal data about millions of citizens in the region and selling it to the US Government.

Documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $US11 million ($17.4 million) last year in return for its data, which includes Mexico's entire list of voters and Colombia's citizen identification database.

ChoicePoint literature advertising its services to the Department of Justice includes the promise of a "national registry file of all adult Colombians, including date and place of birth, gender, parentage, physical description, marital status . . . passport number, and registered profession".

It is illegal under Colombian law for government agencies to disclose such information, except in response to a request for data on a named individual.

A lawyer following the investigations described Mexican officials as incensed, and experts said the revelations threatened to destroy fragile public trust in electoral institutions.

In Nicaragua, police raided two firms believed to have provided the data, and the Costa Rican Government has also begun an inquiry.

Other countries involved include Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Argentina and Venezuela.

ChoicePoint, based near Atlanta, is well known to observers of the Florida vote of 2000 that decided the US presidency in George Bush's favour.

The state hired its subsidiary Database Technologies to overhaul its electoral lists - and ended up wrongly disenfranchising thousands of voters, whose votes might have led to a different result.

Since the election and the September 11 terrorist attacks, ChoicePoint has been the beneficiary of a huge increase in the freedom government agencies have to gain access to personal data, through the USA Patriot Act.

Asked how the US Government was using the data, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs said it was helping to trace illegal immigrants but only if they were guilty of another crime.

Asked to confirm whether the data was used by his bureau only to pursue criminals, he said: "Mainly."

The Guardian

[xJones]

That is a major diplomatic blunder, even if it is to pursue criminals. Sheesh, I don't blame them for being angry at big brother.

[mad puppy]

The state hired its subsidiary Database Technologies to overhaul its electoral lists - and ended up wrongly disenfranchising thousands of voters, whose votes might have led to a different result."

Rinse and Repeat until believed.

[dead]

When it's done to people in this country, I get outraged.

When it's done to people in other countries, I consider it "foreign intelligence gathering."

But I absolutely agree. If I was them, I'd be pissed off too.

[FreePaul]

There is no such thing as a "diplomatic blunder". There are stupid diplomatic moves and even more stupid diplomatic moves. I doubt that diplomats had anything to do with this since it seems to have had some useful purpose. If these third world countries don't want this information released all they have to do is tell their people not to sell it.

[isthisnickcool]

Rinse and Repeat until believed.

No kidding. But no one has yet identified a single eligible voter who was actually and finally kept from voting by the purge according to this story. and others like it.

Remember the "buterfly ballot problem" in Florida? There was no "problem" until the Dems. made it one by calling people from their own lists and talking people into making it an issue. The Dems. have had people like Vin Gupta doing these kinds of list services for them for years.

This story makes it sound like Choicepoint made millions handling the S. American data. It's likely that the S. American data was an extemely small part of those millions.

[RS]

... and the problem with the US having the Mexican voter registration records or the national registry file of all adult Colombians is ....?

[NathanR]

I doubt that diplomats had anything to do with this since it seems to have had some useful purpose.

ROFL and ping.

[dead]

Thanks for the link to that story. It was very informative.

It was also humorous, for the fact that it revealed the sort of illiterate morons Democrats will vote for:

On January 15, Rep. Corrine Brown (D.-Fla.) said on CNN, "I found other people, two or three young men that was there–they–when they went to their precinct, they were told they couldn’t vote because they was felons and they had never been arrested." But she did not name them on the air, and she did not return a phone call requesting further information.