Report Claims Confidential Police Info Used As Confetti At Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

from the oops dept

Mon, Nov 26th 2012 3:29pm — Mike Masnick

Mathew Ingram points us to the somewhat stunning claim that, during the Macy's Thanksgiving parade last week, some of the confetti showered down on viewers in Manhattan was poorly shredded documents from the Nassau County police department (for those not from the area, Nassau County is not in NYC, but right next to it on Long Island).

"There are phone numbers, addresses, more social security numbers, license plate numbers and then we find all these incident reports from police."

One confetti strip indicates that it's from an arrest record, and other strips offer more detail. "This is really shocking," Finkelstein said. "It says, 'At 4:30 A.M. a pipe bomb was thrown at a house in the Kings Grant' area."

Apparently there was also some info about Mitt Romney's motorcade for the last presidential debate that took place at Hofstra University (in Nassau County). And worse:

Most significant, the confetti strips identified Nassau County detectives by name. Some of them are apparently undercover. Their social security numbers, dates of birth and other highly sensitive personal information was also printed on the confetti strips.

The story sounds so bizarre that I'm wondering if it's really true, or if it's just someone messing with the press. But, of course, it's entirely possible. You'd just hope that modern police agencies were smarter than that.

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Filed Under: confetti, parade, private info, secrecy, thanksgiving, undercover police
Companies: macy's

26 Comments

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Zos (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 3:51pm

i've yet to be disappointed betting on how stupid people can be.
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 3:54pm

So... the PD's computers default to "landscape" when printing?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 3:56pm

Re:
*clicks the '-1 faith in humanity' button*
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:08pm

Re:
Yeah, that's what I thought when I read that. Paper shredders don't work that way unless you're printing sideways.
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Jason, 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:09pm

Warrants
And these people want us to trust them with access to our personal information without a warrant.
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Keii (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:24pm

I imagine if you go home with a strip of confidential confettinformation in your hair, you're breaking some sort of law.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:25pm

I wonder if these reports were copyrighted...?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:25pm

Re:
Perhaps by Disney
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 4:32pm

Re: Re:
We need a button like that for the articles.
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Zos (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 5:34pm

Re: Re: Re:
yes. yes we do. that would be an awesome community rating button to have. the more faith in humanity destroyed, the higher ranked the story.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 5:44pm

FFS If these people get any dumber they're going to be in danger of drowning in the shower.

Cause of death: Forgot to look down.
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Starke (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 5:51pm

Re:
Shouldn't that be:

Cause of death: Forgot to look down or close mouth
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Brian, 26 Nov 2012 @ 7:09pm

I believe it
At my work were looking for a shredding company. One of the companies left small bags of shredded paper as their business card. We found SSN & other confidential info from the local university in some of the bags. We obviously went with the other company.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 7:31pm

You'd just hope that modern police agencies were smarter than that.

Hope for the best, expect the worst.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2012 @ 7:39pm

"You'd just hope that modern police agencies were smarter than that."

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
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nasch (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 9:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think even more important is a Sad But True button. ;-) or maybe ;-(
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nasch (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 9:04pm

Re: Re:
With any kind of half decent shredder (ie crosscut) it doesn't matter what way you put the paper in, it's cut into tiny little pieces that would be a nightmare to put together even if you had all of them in one place, and don't hold more than a couple of characters on a piece. The incompetence of using a shredder that only cuts into strips (don't know what the term is) for law enforcement documents is amazing.
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Wally (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 9:38pm

Makes me wonder...
Makes me wonder about how much evidence got shredded...
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Wally (profile), 26 Nov 2012 @ 9:45pm

Re: Makes me wonder...
Now that I think of it, they shredded their papers the wrong direction. I know when I shred any sensitive documents, I shred as closely from corner to corner as possible. This ensures that the paper shreds in a way to not let Social Security numbers be single digits and harder to piece together.
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JohnParry, 26 Nov 2012 @ 11:17pm

Shredders
Hilarious. They're using the wrong type of shredder.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2012 @ 2:06am

Re: Shredders
They're using the one with the two boarmen and mutant turtles?
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Vincent Clement (profile), 27 Nov 2012 @ 6:38am

More breaking news on this story
http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-parade-shredded-1126,0,6831776.story
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Niall (profile), 27 Nov 2012 @ 7:40am

Re: Re: Shredders
Except twice as incompetent and ineffective.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2012 @ 8:05am

Ya know - it could be a plant
What is to stop someone who had electronic access to records they wanted "the public" to become aware of deciding to print out the records, shred them, then distribute at the parade?

It might even move said holder of the electronic version beyond the ability for the detectives to find them. So long as they didn't use a printer with the dot patterns in the paper.....
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Joe Schmo, 27 Nov 2012 @ 4:58pm

Re: Ya know - it could be a plant
It is usual for any such system to record all access to the records and severely punish anyone who accesses them without cause. I think it is just carelessness.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Dec 2012 @ 12:14am

a good sleuth will fig if out
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