The AP's Julie Carr Smyth reported that the lion's share of the work performed by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI)is now devoted to civilian background checks. Whether interpreted as needed or not, the number of annual checks performed by BCI since 1993 has grown from an yearly average of 38,000 to 650,000, a volume some critics say demonstrates that prevents close scrutiny from taking place.

"Now, more civilians are checked each year than criminals. And checks on the vast majority come back clean, even as states allot more money for their growing screening operations." AP

The trend in Ohio seems to mirror the trend nationally, according to Steve Fischer, a spokesman for the FBI contacted by the AP. Fischer said the pattern in Ohio matches what's happening at the national level, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy and the fear that grips law enforcement that terrorists bent on performing even greater feats of disaster are in the population now, maybe in respected professions, as was seen with the Muslim doctors who tried to bomb the Glasgow Airport this year.

Fischer said background checks are growing at a 12-percent per year clip, daunting by anyone's standards.

"He (Fischer) said the federal program used to be heavily weighted toward checking criminals, but a shift toward civilians has occurred." AP

THE PROBLEMS WITH BACKGROUND CHECKS ARE MANY

It's popular for politicians to talk glibly and confidently about doing background checks, as if there's some unified, national data base of accurate information on everyone that can taped immediately to find out who's been naughty and who's been nice. That system doesn't exit, at least not yet, and may never exist so long as criminal and civil records are kept as they are now - in individual court houses spread across the nation.

So despite all the well-meaning legislation passed by legislators who want to protect children from pedophiles, senior citizens from criminals or employers just trying to verify the information a job applicant enters on an application, like a social security number, employment history and education credentials or driving record, doing a simple background check is not as simple as it sounds.

First, background checks fall under the provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which also requires that any potential employee given apprised of any negative results so that they can provide information to counter or correct them.

Secondly, criminal and civil information is kept, often times in paper files, in county courthouses across America's 4,337 counties. And it's not uncommon that criminal records are housed in a separate building from civil records.

Moreover, while a lot of progress has been made in the electronic accessibility of information, most searches still need human hands at the helm because records not always up-to-date and only have arrest information and not conviction or sentencing information. Modernizing information systems take time and money, and many counties don't have much of either. Even though advanced counties are digitizing their information, a surprising number of counties require requests in writing or take an inordinate amount of time to produce results, which may not be accurate.

To do background checks in the state of Ohio, public record information is only checked for the previous three months. And since records are kept on a county basis in each state, the counties to be checked are determined by information from a potential employee, who may have a clean record in one county, a county that is checked, but a long list of violations in the neighboring county, which wasn't checked. So the gaps and loopholes preventing a thorough check are huge and problematic.

ARE AMERICANS ACCLIMATING TO THE EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES?

The glut of background checks in Ohio and other states and at the national level, while maybe producing more sound than fury, may also be a sign that Americans are becoming more acclimated to the erosion of their private civil liberties.

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Frank Rich jumped into this issue in his November 11th article "The Coup at Home" when musing about the recent nullification of democracy in Pakistan by that country's strongman and dictator General Musharraf and the consent by the U.S. Senate to approve Michael B. Mukasey as President Bush's next Attorney General, said this of the decline of democracy and civil rights here:

"In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we've propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We've become inured to democracy-lite. That's why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug."

"The Bush years have brought an even more effective assault on those institutions from within. While the public has not erupted in riots, the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup, ultimately more insidious than a blatant putsch like General Musharraf's."

"What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal."

"We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon." Frank Rich, NYT

Following Rich's theme of democracy gone bad, the Ohio ACLU is equally concerned about spying on Ohioans. Looking at Ohio, they asking Ohioans to say something about "See Something. Say Something," a new initiative by the The Ohio Department of Public Safety, which encourages Ohio residents to call a toll free line if they witness something they believe is “suspicious.”

"Programs such as this have been proven to be ineffective in gathering information on terrorists. Instead, many innocent people are subjected to government scrutiny and reinforces stereotypes that certain people "do not belong" or are "out of place" in society." ACLU

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. He now serves as the OhioNews Bureau Chief for ePluribus Media Journal.

If ePluribus Media readers have a news tip or story idea about Ohio politics or government, contact the OhioNews Bureau at: ohionews@www.epluribusmedia.org