Yet another horrific car-bombing this morning in Iraq leaves more than 70 dead … and may leave authorities here wondering if maybe, just maybe, a better effort on the part of state IT departments in the U.S. could have prevented this carnage … or the next attack.
What’s the possible connection? According to this morning’s Boston Globe, federal authorities say a car-theft database network that has languished largely unfinished for 15 years could provide invaluable clues for stemming the flow of stolen vehicles from the U.S. to countries where they are used in suicide bombings.
From the story:
Bought and sold on the international black market, cars and trucks help fund criminal operations and can be turned into the terrorist weapon of choice against US troops and Iraqi civilians: vehicles packed with explosives. The FBI declined to estimate how many stolen US cars have turned up as car bombs in Iraq but said the number is believed to be at least in the dozens.
The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System was created in 1992 to thwart motor vehicle thefts, but it remains a patchwork repository at best.
Authorities say the system, which has the potential to track every car or truck in the country by its vehicle identification number, has languished because of years of local government inattention, a lack of urgency among state motor vehicle departments, and inconsistent federal funding.
Left unclear from my reading of the story is the extent to which states have leeway, if any, in terms of their participation. If not an absolute mandate, it certainly should be, and not only because of this purported link to terrorism: It’s estimated that car theft costs Americans $8 billion a year and that only a third of stolen autos are recovered. An effective national database could certainly be expected to help domestic law enforcement.
Only nine states are doing all they should do here. And California, the car-theft capital of the country, is doing zip.
