"Hmmmm ... Brown, Ron ... Foster, Vince ... Lott, Trent ... Ah, here we are: McCain."
Posted on 03/05/2006 8:34:12 PM PST by Navy Patriot
I got access to a computer at FBI headquarters recently and took the opportunity to see what they had on me.
A lot, as it turned out. Up popped my name in an investigation of Scott Ritter, the former top Iraq arms inspector turned administration critic. I'd interviewed him on the telephone several times in the late 1990s.
Scrolling down, I also saw a note on my 1972 membership in a group of graduate students and faculty who wrote scholarly articles against the war in Vietnam, evidently related to an investigation of Jane Fonda. There were also excerpts of articles I'd written over the years that mentioned bombings and the FBI.
And there were what looked like my bank transactions, past addresses and telephone numbers.
This was a lot more information about me than the FBI said they had when I requested my files in the late 1990s. And from my cursory peek, I could tell my files went deep.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I was at a computer terminal in an unmarked room on the ninth floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, a place so packed with cubicles it looked like an egg carton. The only sounds were the clicks of neighboring keyboards.
I was there at the invitation of FBI spokesman John Miller, who was so concerned that I'd gotten an overly negative and inaccurate picture of the bureau's information retrieval and information sharing systems from my sources -- almost all of whom have first-hand knowledge of how the system works and are extremely critical of it -- that he brought me into a once-forbidden chamber of the FBI.
The state of the FBI's data systems is of interest to more than geeks and hackers. How well, or badly, the FBI's computers work is central to its ability to reinvent itself as a first-rate domestic counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency in "the age of sacred terror," as one author calls it. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, critics said the FBI was too soaked in a cop mentality to retool itself for the more painstaking, subtle work of intelligence, which rarely results in arrests, to neutralize al Qaeda.
Nearly 4 1/2 years after Sept. 11, plenty of people are still saying the FBI hasn't changed enough, fast enough.
Former FBI officials and analysts describe clunky, antiquated systems where access to even Google is difficult or impossible, where analysts lack even simple e-mail alerts or RSS feeds of new case data. All databases depend on dedicated staff to populate it with good information. That job goes to FBI agents, who often can't or won't take the time to put their case notes into the system.
One former analyst who quit in frustration said she discovered that an agent in another city had case files on a subject she was pursuing, and then had to spend wasteful days traveling there to see them.
I got to look at my ex-wife's file, it was kind of weird. It had our old phone number listed and next to it said, "if man answers, HANG UP!"
It still amazes me that people are surprised at government inefficiency. FEMA, FBI, DOD, IRS, it's all a huge, monumental waste. How long has the FAA been trying to upgrade it's computers?
The only thing that I can think of as an analogy to government inefficency at this critical time is the boarding security check in the movie Airplane II.
No, I think that was MY ex wife.
Here's a neat little factoid for you.
Do you know who the worlds largest consumer of old style vacuum tubes is?
It's the FAA.
Here's another one. There's only one factory in the world left making them, and that's in Great Britain.
Enjoy your next flight.
L
"Hmmmm ... Brown, Ron ... Foster, Vince ... Lott, Trent ... Ah, here we are: McCain."
I'm sure Hillary had the hard copy files delivered in person, not even she could get them out of a FBI computer.
Seriously, how do you find out if the FBI has a file on you?
You ask them, theoretically they have to tell you under the Freedom of Information Act.
And don't call me seriously, I won't call you theoretically.
Every generation of equipment was there, from the 1960's on, just judging from the styles of faceplates and controls and input/output.
There were also multiple redundancies built into the system at every level.
Yes, some of it was still vacuum tube, but some was microcircuitry as well. Along with the line power and 5 yr (continuous run) rated backup generators were leyden jar batteries.
The bottom line is that barring destruction of the facility, the system will work.
Just write and ask them. They will.
2. Post on Free Republic.
3. Thank the "patriot" act.
Thanks for the replies. It's funny, but I lurked at FR until the Clintons were out of office. I was actually afraid of signing up.
I'm sure they do have a file on me, because after I posted, I remembered that I had to have an FBI/DOJ backround check last year. It's official....I'm boring : )
Ping for later in-depth read (I'm busy at work at the moment...).
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