Leviathan's Web

The most critical disclosure offered by the Washington Post's report on the “OneDOJ” database being built by the Department of “Justice” is found buried near the end of the piece – as we'll see anon.

Although the Post refers to the database as OneDOJ, it is also known as the National Data Exchange, or N-DEx. However we refer to it, the system would allow “state and local police officers around the country to search millions of cases from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies,” as well as information compiled by state and local police agencies. The system, which a present is limited to a pilot program involving a small number of agencies, “will be a central mechanism for sharing federal law enforcement information with local and state investigators,” observes the Post.

“The goal is that all of U.S. Law enforcement will be able to look at each other's records to solve cases and protect U.S. Citizens,” insists Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty. (.pdf) “With OneDOJ, we will essentially hook them up to a pipe that will taken them into its records.”

Michael Hampton, a diligent investigator of the Homeland Security State, points out that within the next three years, the N-DEx/OneDOJ system “will provide local and state law enforcement with access to each other's data. N-DEx will contain incident/case reports, arrest, booking and incarceration data, and parole/probation data contributed by DOJ and participating law enforcement agencies.”

A “Justice” Department PowerPoint briefing found by Hampton points out: “Ideally, N-DEx would obtain its data from the 50 States' repositories, however, this model is not occurring nationwide and as such, N-DEx must be able to obtain its data through a variety of options as permitted by policy.”

Those “options” would likely involve data streams carrying huge volumes of personal data about people who have never seen the inside of a jail cell or courtroom. All of that information would be passed along the federal pipeline to officers making traffic stops, or conducting checkpoints. That pipeline will not be equipped to filter out unproven or baseless allegations. As the Post points out, through the system “tens of thousands of local police officers could gain access to personal details about people who have not been arrested or charged with crimes.”

While the database will include details harvested from proctoscope-level scrutiny of the public at large, however, it will demurely refrain from intruding into the affairs of the State's loyal servants. Notes the Post:

“Much information will be kept out of the system, including data about public corruption cases, classified or sensitive topics, confidential informants, administrative cases and civil rights probes involving allegations of wrongdoing by police....”

This is the above-mentioned “critical disclosure” offered in the Post story. In the omissions we can see, once again, the true priorities that govern the Homeland Security State: Protect the Regime and its servants uber alles, while treating the public at large as criminals who are free only by the grace of the Almighty State.




It's worth noting as well that the development of this huge database has proceeded without so much as a syllable of protest from the Republican-aligned conservatives who, a decade ago, rent the air with anguished cries over the Clinton White House's illegal acquisition of “raw” FBI files on hundreds of Republican officials.

GOP fellow travelers charged – quite plausibly – that the 8-900 files – each of which was an omnium gatherum of personal information, some of it little better than gossip – would be used as what the Russians call compromat against the Clinton administration's political enemies.

Last May, Republican-allied media critic L. Brent Bozell III condemned the mainstream media for offering more critical coverage of the Bush regime's illegal electronic surveillance program than it did for the Clinton administration's “Filegate” scandal.

“It's only when Republicans hold the White House that the networks fear an `imperial presidency,'” whined Bozell. This may be true. It's also entirely irrelevant to those of us who, like myself (I was a spokesman for the National Impeach Clinton ACTION Committee) have nothing but contempt for both of the Ruling Party's retail outlets.




Ten years ago, Republicans were in a lather over the fact that Party leaders and operatives were vulnerable to political blackmail. One year ago, many of the same Republicans insisted that only “terrorists” needed to worry about their telephone and e-mail communications being intercepted by the NSA.

Now we see the “Justice” Department rolling out the first stage of what they hope will be a seamless data network connecting every police agency and officer, giving them access to what eventually could be every recorded personal detail about every U.S. Citizen.