Police chief talks about background checks vs. privacy
by: Dan Reany / WSLS NewsChannel 10
July 12, 2005
Fairs and carnivals pop up all over the United States this time of year, and with Alan Ianni's recent arrest, people in our area are thinking -- background checks.
"I can't get a background check on someone just because I want to look at it. It has to be part of some sort of investigation," says Lynchburg Police Chief Charles Bennett.
Bennett says nabbing wanted sex offenders like Ianni isn't as simple as running a check on every carney who comes through town.
"The idea that we're just going to somehow wholesale round up names and do checks on people, that's really not the way government and law enforcement in the United States works," Bennett says. "This is one of those dilemmas that arise with homeland security and a variety of things where we're balancing individual rights, that is the right to privacy, the right not to be interfered with by police, against the public good, which is to ensure we do not have, in this case, sex offenders, coming in to operate in our community. And it is a difficult balancing act."
It's a balancing act families need to weigh in on. "People need to be thinking safety all the time," Bennett says. "It doesn't mean they need to be paranoid. It doesn't mean you can't enjoy venues like this. It simply means you need to use good common sense."
Story taken from the following website: http://www.wsls.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSLS%2FMGArticle%2FSLS_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783798894&path=!news!localnews
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