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

from the oops dept

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.

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