(This is how I described it in my novel. This part was written by 2002, when Able Danger was still a big secret.)
Okay, well, this is pretty sensitive stuff, began Silvari. Not the theory, but what were going to do with it. This is not to leave this room, okay? The fact is were already making our next lists from our own predictive programs.
These were originally dreamed up on Madison Avenue to tell advertisers what people wanted, before they even know it. It works so well, its almost scary! Computers mine all of the data bases you can imagine, and then some. They check your credit card purchases back for years, they see where youve lived and where you go on vacation, the kind of car you buy, the food you eat, ten thousand things that add up to you. Then they compare that you to everybody else, and then they see what folks like you just bought.
Did you ever call a catalog company to make an order, and at the end they ask if you want to hear their list of specials? Their computer just cranked out the list of specials it thinks youll want. Before data mining and predictive programs, they used to average about a ten percent hit-rate on the specials. Now they get over 80% sales! Think about it; the computer can guess what youll want to buy next, 80% of the time!
Everybody who found out about this got very excited, as you can imagine. CIA, FBI, NSA, everybody. Then after 9-11, there was a big push to use the predictive programs for catching Muslim terrorists, to find the sleepers by their credit cards, their movements, memberships, phone usage patterns, everything. Brilliant data mining at its finest: thats the essence of the Terrorist Information Awareness program. And let me tell you, it works. They get a lot of false hits, but they catch a lot of bad guys with it too. A lot of them, more than are ever reported in the media.
Anyway, Malvone got access to some of the predictive program algorithms, and my number one computer geek Charles changed the parameters. Now we can tap into the TIA program and use it for finding our own home-grown terrorists, based on the ones weve already busted and jailed over the years. The program looks at the vehicles they drive, the magazines they read, the websites they surf
and of course their credit cards. With gun nuts thats especially useful, because they buy so much from catalogs and on the internet. I mean, if somebody ordered five thousand rounds of AK-47 ammo in 1999, its pretty obvious what kind of weapons he has!
So well just aim our own version of the predictive program at a zip code or a town, and itll spit out the most dangerous right wing nut jobs. Itll bird-dog the next Shiffletts or McVeighs, the ones who are really out on the edge.
So thats where our next list of targets is going to come from: from our own in-house predictive programs. And since were not in the business of building court cases, it doesnt really matter if theyve tech- nically broken the law yet or not. And anyway, with these gun nuts, you can always find something! You know, a gun they bought in one juris- diction that they failed to register properly when they moved somewhere else, or a barrel thats too long or too short
And no matter what happens to the guy, you can always make it a gun accident or a premature bomb, and therell be enough incrim- inating evidence in his house to make it fly in the press. So that parts easy. But if by some miracle a guy on the list actually turns out to be squeaky clean, well, we still have the militia drop guns that Malvone gave us, just in case...
The STU Team leaders were silent, absorbing the meaning of what theyd just heard. The cutting-edge STU Team was going to smoke out the most dangerous gun nuts and Constitution fanatics using an ad- vanced computer program, and the TIA data bases. This was just about as proactive as it could get! No more waiting around until after the bomb went off, or the politician was assassinated.
Way cool, said Hollywood Tim Jaeger.
I like it. I really like it, said Michael Shanks.
NOW I remember the part about the catalogue orders... I just couldn't relate it to supermarkets and their cards.
7.62x39... works in SKS rifles...
I verbally slap checkout clerks and other register-jockeys when they ask to have my phone number or other personal information for a cash-for-product transaction (which is about all I do, nowadays)
clerk: that'll be $37.86. your phone number, please?
me: why do you want my phone number?
clerk: for our records...
me: why would you believe I would want you to keep records of what I buy when and where?
clerk: but... but... deals... tracking... offers...
me: no. not what I want. not your concern. this is cash. complete the transaction. give me my change. thank you. good day.
Thanks Travis. I've probably got enough purchases to get spit out in a data search. At least they'll know I'm hetero.
Man, I keep procrastinating about buying your book.
Seems like you've crystallized the worst case scenario that I've bounced around in my own head. All this Patriot Act stuff, the Able Danger type programs, TIA, carnivore, etc. is all well and good for protecting the country- as long as Janet Reno isn't the attorney general.
Once we elect some nutjob again, we're closer to totalitarianism than we ever were before, due to precedents set by this Administration.
I would prefer a formal declaration of war, and suspension of habeas corpus according to Article 1 Sec. 9, until we're somewhat out of the woods with regard to the Islamists. What are your thoughts? (You'll probably just say 'read the book' and I'll find out!)
durasell: Potential misuse of data by the gov't can be dealt with via laws.
Apparently not.
LTC Shaffer is on the hot seat precisely because neither party, nor any of the involved agencies, wanted the general public to know about such operations. They could care less about foreign terrorists (who simply provide the basis and funding for the inception of such programs). It is the tax-paying citizens who must be monitored and controlled.
It's called behavior modeling and it's based on demographics and psychographics.
Every corporation in America does it to one degree or another.