Nation: Cops' Co-Op

Civil libertarians fear police data exchange

What have you got on this guy?" Police departments have always asked this question of each other, and very often of the FBI, as they look for information that will help an investigation. In 1956 some departments, frustrated by their inability to get data from the cautious FBI, began setting up an organization known as the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit to share their files on a more systematic basis. Almost unknown to outsiders, L.E.I.U. has since acquired a membership of 227 state and local police departments in the U.S. and Canada. Now, like the FBI a...

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