Government’s “Security” Database Unreliable

When the United States Government discovered that several of the September 11 hijackers re-entered the United States despite having expired visas, federal immigration authorities announced with great fanfare a new computer database with the names of thousands of foreign nationals who evaded deportation orders.

The database, called National Crime Information Center (NCIC), was created not only for the federal government to monitor violators but also to provide local police departments with a resource to routinely query when they stop someone for a traffic violation.

It turns out that the NCIC is not reliable and, over the years has provided wrong information to police departments nationwide (Miami Herald).

Detailed information on the system’s failure was released in a new study conducted by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington D.C. think tank that studies immigration worldwide. With information provided by the Department of Homeland Security, the study reveals that 42% of all police queries to NCIC turned out to be wrong. California led the nation with an error rate of 90% and Florida, the state that at least two of the September 11 terrorists slipped through, had an error rate of 57%.