Sep 22, 2007

Government Official Uses Homeland Security Data To Stalk Ex-Girlfriend

This story represents a perfect example of why the government needs to be limited in its power and why our privacy as citizens needs to be protected. Benjamin Robinson, a 40-year old government agent from Oakland, CA within the Department of Commerce, has been charged with illegally accessing a Homeland Security Database in order to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family. His indictment by a federal grand jury in San Jose this week was in connection with allegations that he accessed the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) over 163 times to track the woman’s movements.

Robinson is being charged with making false claims to a government agency and unlawfully accessing data from a protected computer (seems the computer wasn’t very secure at all). If found guilty, Robinson could face a $500,000 fine and a maximum of up to 10 years in prison.

The scariest thing about all of this is that if this individual got caught, imagine all of those who haven’t gotten caught and are spying on us. Everyone kind of expected in the back of their minds that this could happen, and it’s sobering to see it actually happening as perhaps this can actually incite some people to act. The only way to stop government spying on citizens is to limit the power of the government.

33 Comments, Comment or Ping

gordon

Too late. Counter-intel will ensure that even if you physically replace every government computer the very power/data lines will collect info. Duh… what do you think 60 years of CIA will do?

Sep 22nd, 2007
Me

If you want to limit the power of government, okay, fine .. but then don’t later complain when governement didn’t “do something to prevent this tragedy” (pick your favorite future nightmare scenario) … there will always be nutcases who will abuse the system for their own ends… like firing and indicting (for nothing) the long-time White House travel office folks .. remember Billy Dale? We have to have the protective and preventative systems in place.. and we have to deal with the abuses of these systems… but not by shutting them down.

Sep 22nd, 2007
Todd

My psycho soon-to-be ex-wife has access to the homeland security database and threatened to use it to track my whereabouts if I tried to “get away” from her.

Sep 22nd, 2007
Me Too

@ME
Your Argument is basically we either need to give the government absolute power or we give up any right to be protected by it. That’s the definition of extremist, you know where you go to one extreme or the other, and I would think that after all that’s happened people would realize extremism in any form is the root of many problems. The problem is that invading our privacy does little to help insure our safety, it undermines our rights, and when,not if, it is abused it can have devastating consequences. I’m not saying that the government should never investigate anything ever, but unless they have a reason to suspect you are a danger to the lives of others they have no reason to track what your doing. So unless this guys ex happened to be a terrorist WTF are tehy doing collecting her information in the first place?

Sep 22nd, 2007
nikolai

About 3 yrs ago I golfed with some guy from Michigan who’s brother and sister both worked for Homeland Security and this guy told me that one of them had told him that the reason Phil Mickelson had changed his sponsorship to Calloway was because Mickelson had some major gambling debts, and Calloway “took care of it” under the condition that Mickelson would switch to Calloway equipment.
Now, I couldn’t care less about Phil Mickleson’s private life, debt, or even his golf game, because I don’t really admire Mickelson (I like Tiger) but still, if the story of Mickleson switching to Calloway because of his gambling debts was leaked by Homeland Security in any way, shape or form, that is truly despicable and a total invasion of privacy. I can’t prove anything, but that’s what the guy from Michigan told me…

Sep 22nd, 2007
Keith

ME: “If you want to limit the power of government, okay, fine .. but then don’t later complain when governement didn’t “do something to prevent this tragedy” (pick your favorite future nightmare scenario) We have to have the protective and preventative systems in place.. and we have to deal with the abuses of these systems… but not by shutting them down.”

Are you suggesting a Department of Department of Homeland Security Security? If this guy’s ex-girlfriend doesn’t agree then she better not complain about being stalked.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Chuck

The better part of this story will be the someone hacked into this computer through the internet and took all the data. Sound familuar?
My question would be why was is plugged into the internet

Sep 23rd, 2007
tressmeister

Limit government power ? you can’t.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Dan

If homeland security were to be shut down and all their computers burned,The spy in the sky satellites can read your license plates on your car, a judge can issue an ok for a phone tap, the FBI can read your email, and lastly the new helicopter infared cameras can tell if your in your house.

Do you really think it would do any good to try and curtail them?

Sep 23rd, 2007
Tujiro

They say with great power comes great responsibility. I can’t tell. Vanity.

Sep 23rd, 2007
LastNYCHero

Why didnt that government official just use Google and Facebook? Probably could have been just as useful and a lot less risky.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Dan

Some loser spys on his ex-girlfriend, gets caught, gets indicted and faces ten years in prison. How is this an example of the “government” spying on its citizens? Move along, nothing but overreaction here.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Benjamin Franklin

“People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”

Sep 23rd, 2007
christopher

RE:ME

Do you even realize how irrational your comment is? You’re literally saying that we need to give up our privacy and personal liberties for an ounce of possible ‘protection.’
You’re a coward. You probably tremble in bed at night thinking about how many things ‘could go wrong’ or how many ‘tragedies’ may affect your personal life if the government doesn’t intervene on your behalf. Here’s an idea, Einstein: How about the government only stores and collects information on POSSIBLE terrorists instead of average americans. Ever hear stories about 4 year old kids on the ‘no fly’ list? It happens all the time. Because the U.S. is too busy spying on it’s law abiding citizens to actually catch (as bush calls them ) Ter’Rists.
Here’s another idea: Secure our borders. Here’s another idea: Keep track of those individuals who come here from the so-called ‘terrorist states’ instead of losing track of them after they get here. Better yet, don’t allow individuals from those terrorists states visit the U.S.
There are millions of things the government can do other than track what kind of toilet papers it’s citizens use and to watch their every move.
Attitudes like yours has allowed the government to run rampant over the constitution and impede on our privacies and limited liberty.
People like you not only allowed it, you actually pleaded for it: “protect us from ourselves!”
If the government was doing it’s job, 9/11 would have never happened and that’s a FACT. So you’re hinging your entire argument to allow them unliminted access to spy on us on one event that should have been stopped in the first place?
I don’t use this term much but ‘fool’ seems to describe your outlook on granting unlimited power to the goverment. And this is supposed to be a ‘conservative’ administration. Remember what ‘conservative’ used to mean? Less government? Less intervention? Now the country looks to the government for every single little thing.
“protect us! we can’t protect ourselves!”
Certainly you can’t as long as the borders are left completely unchecked and the very government you look to for protection allows visitors from the states determined to harbor terrorist to visit the U.S. and stay indefinitely by not keeping track of THOSE people instead of good, law-abiding citizens.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Chaos Motor

Governments deserve to hold no secrets, ever, period. No classified, no Top Secret, no nothing, not ever, under no circumstances. There is absolutely no excuse ever to obfuscate, hide, or withhold data that doesn’t draw to a nefarious means. Nothing the Government knows should ever, ever be secret. That is a basic protection of your rights.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Matt Myers

See, now if Ron Paul was president this wouldn’t have happened.

Sep 23rd, 2007
Nat

Benjamin Robinson’s defense when they caught him: “Wait… you mean this isn’t Facebook?”

Sep 23rd, 2007
The Profit

The government has too much power, they have become corrupt, they do not trust their own people, and abuse the powers the people have been tricked into giving them. thus they must keep an eye on the people to make certain they dont relize how badly they f*cked up, and the ones who do become terrorists.

as for this offical using the system to spy on his ex, not that hard to belive it happend, and probly still happening with others.

simply put, Spying = Stalking
only differnce, one wont get you thrown in jail. (assuming the court system still works)

Sep 23rd, 2007
JT

From what I heard the guy actually was being stalked and his superiors are covering up that he was trying to stop her from using his personal information to bring a supposedly baby from iran. I suggest we wait until the full story comes out before we attack him. all i know is that iran is a major red flag.

Sep 25th, 2007