My hat is off to those brave Americans who are willing to risk a trumped-up arrest in order to protect our civil-liberties.
But man, oh man, an NCIC arrest record is an utterly indelible, follow-you-everywhere-for-the-rest-of-your-life electronic Scarlet Letter. An arrest record is available to any employer willing to pay for a background check, and it’s an immensely powerful tool for a single police officer to utterly – and without any accountability whatsoever – ruin your life simply by arresting you on bogus charges, even if the charges are dropped a couple hours later.
It’s the kind of thing that you used to read about in stories from East Germany, where annoying a single government agent could get you black-listed for life. Except it’s here in America, right now, for real.
