US suspends vast ADVISE data-sifting system

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | Tue Aug 28, 4:00 AM ET | Mark Clayton

[Dan Cooper]

From late 2004 until mid-2006, a little-known data-mining computer system developed by the US Department of Homeland Security to hunt terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and biological weapons sifted through Americans' personal data with little regard for federal privacy laws.

Now the $42 million cutting-edge system, designed to process trillions of pieces of data, has been halted and could be canceled pending data-privacy reviews, according to a newly released report to Congress by the DHS's own internal watchdog

[Dan Cooper]

This article looks like it is lifting the lid on a successor to the Able-Danger data-mining operation. The article goes on to state that the program collected data from databases, blogs, email traffic, intelligence reports, and other sources and displayed the results as visual patterns where links could be spotted by an analyst. I personally have no problem with a program like this using publicly available data such as internet posts, telephone records, etc. to search for terrorist threats as long as oversight there to keep it from being used as a political weapon. The program is being suspended because it hasn't done a privacy risk impact study as required even though they have been in development/operation for a couple of years.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Next thing the Dems will insist that DHS not use Google to identify folks.

[txhurl]

Between this and Able Danger, there's a reason we haven't been attacked since Sept. 11.

A robust MAD policy helps, too.

[CondorFlight]

I don’t like the idea of government being able to see everything, but in this case I’ll make an exception. It’s preferable to seeing a mass casualty attack on one of our cities.

I’d hate to see the government not get the info it needs (as it did with a computer they were not allowed to examine before 9/11) because of legal impediments.

[RoadKingSE]

From late 2004 until mid-2006, a little-known data-mining computer system

Sounds like something Hitlery RodDamn and her political hack-in-chief Harold Ickes and some little skank named Laura Quinn would invent. Maybe they could call it Data Warehouse or some such innocuous name, so long as it was ready for Hitlery's run up to the Demokrat Presidential nomination. Turns out in 2004 they DID invent it!! Funny the MSM privacy wonks and wonkettes said nada about it publicly. And as Demokratz it probably has data on every one of these "news" clowns from Abrams, to Blitzer, to Lauer, to Olberpunk and Rather.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

From "data mining"...

...to "data sifting"...

Hmmmm...more evidence of our national wussification.

[NonValueAdded]

Damn, many of us at FR would volunteer to be interviewed to help them tune the accuracy of the program. After all, if it working, then they know who we are :)

[Dan Cooper]

That’s some pretty robust mining there. Your data gets searched like that and you will feel it in the morning.

[Dan Cooper]

Sounds like something Hitlery RodDamn and her political hack-in-chief Harold Ickes and some little skank named Laura Quinn would invent.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that any organization that has the wherewithal already has a tools like this for marketing, donor identification, strategery, opposition research, blackmail, etc.

[Dan Cooper]

I think you just volunteered...

[Dilbert56]

Great. Now the terrorist know we look for patterns in their travel and use of credit cards. So most of them will be smart enough to change their habits. We will have lost another weapon.

• They've learned from the CIA via NYT that we're listening to their international communications.
• The Democrats have redirected CIA to study Global Warming instead of IslamoFascism.
• They've learned from the CIA via the NYT that we're monitoring their finances.
• They've learned from public debate that we'll now start tracing international communications that go through U.S. facilities.
• They've learned from the CIA via the NYT how other countries have been cooperating with us and how their political allies will make that cooperating end.
• And now they've learned from CSM that their data fingerprints are being sifted.

Why don't the Democrats just get it over with and invite Al Qaida operatives to work in the Dept. of Homeland Security. Maybe they could get copied on the Presidential security briefings or attend in person.

Then, after the next mass casualty attack, another commision of political hacks can tell us all these things we did were wrong.

[dirtboy]

Great. Now the terrorist know we look for patterns in their travel and use of credit cards. So most of them will be smart enough to change their habits. We will have lost another weapon.

I'm sorry, but until the government uses the basic weapons effectively, I cannot support these kind of actions.

- We don't secure our borders.

- We can't track visa overstays (and how many 9-11 hijackers were visa overstays?)

- We refuse to profile the main terror target of Islamic males and instead pat down grannies.

- And we issue waay too many visas to those from questionable areas.

In other words, we are not doing the basics. Until the government first shows me that they will do the basics, and then make a case that doing the basics are not enough, this kind of database is absurd.