Posted on 11/09/2002 9:31:25 AM PST by rs79bm
By JOHN MARKOFF
he Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United States.
As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.
Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without extraordinary legal authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute details of electronic life in the United States.
Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.
"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options," he said in a speech in California earlier this year.
Admiral Poindexter quietly returned to the government in January to take charge of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Darpa. The office is responsible for developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worries civil liberties proponents.
"This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has been briefed on the project by Admiral Poindexter and the two had a lunch to discuss it, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
"As part of our development process, we hope to coordinate with a variety of organizations, to include the law enforcement community," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.
An F.B.I. official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the bureau had had preliminary discussions with the Pentagon about the project but that no final decision had been made about what information the F.B.I. might add to the system.
A spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, Gordon Johndroe, said officials in the office were not familiar with the computer project and he declined to discuss concerns raised by the project's critics without knowing more about it.
He referred all questions to the Defense Department, where officials said they could not address civil liberties concerns because they too were not familiar enough with the project.
Some members of a panel of computer scientists and policy experts who were asked by the Pentagon to review the privacy implications this summer said terrorists might find ways to avoid detection and that the system might be easily abused.
"A lot of my colleagues are uncomfortable about this and worry about the potential uses that this technology might be put, if not by this administration then by a future one," said Barbara Simon, a computer scientist who is past president of the Association of Computing Machinery. "Once you've got it in place you can't control it."
Other technology policy experts dispute that assessment and support Admiral Poindexter's position that linking of databases is necessary to track potential enemies operating inside the United States.
"They're conceptualizing the problem in the way we've suggested it needs to be understood," said Philip Zelikow, a historian who is executive director of the Markle Foundation task force on National Security in the Information Age. "They have a pretty good vision of the need to make the tradeoffs in favor of more sharing and openness."
On Wednesday morning, the panel reported its findings to Dr. Tony Tether, the director of the defense research agency, urging development of technologies to protect privacy as well as surveillance, according to several people who attended the meeting.
If deployed, civil libertarians argue, the computer system would rapidly bring a surveillance state. They assert that potential terrorists would soon learn how to avoid detection in any case.
The new system will rely on a set of computer-based pattern recognition techniques known as "data mining," a set of statistical techniques used by scientists as well as by marketers searching for potential customers.
The system would permit a team of intelligence analysts to gather and view information from databases, pursue links between individuals and groups, respond to automatic alerts, and share information efficiently, all from their individual computers.
The project calls for the development of a prototype based on test data that would be deployed at the Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va. Officials would not say when the system would be put into operation.
The system is one of a number of projects now under way inside the government to lash together both commercial and government data to hunt for patterns of terrorist activities.
"What we are doing is developing technologies and a prototype system to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists, and decipher their plans, and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully pre-empt and defeat terrorist acts," said Jan Walker, the spokeswoman for the defense research agency.
Before taking the position at the Pentagon, Admiral Poindexter, who was convicted in 1990 for his role in the Iran-contra affair, had worked as a contractor on one of the projects he now controls. Admiral Poindexter's conviction was reversed in 1991 by a federal appeals court because he had been granted immunity for his testimony before Congress about the case.
True, but it's also true for any attribute of government. We don't really need any restrictions on government power because the government is inherently virtuous and impossible to corrupt.
On a thread this past week relating to immigration issues, I had provided a link to a copy of the Department of Labor's LCA (Labor Condition Application) database. It holds all of the applications for alien work visas dating back to 1991.
I'll provide a link to it again for the purposes of this discussion;
Labor Condition Application Database
During the discussion on the thread in question, a poster had attempted to claim that he had found invalid data. He had noticed that there was a company that had 104 records with 30 workers on each. This resulted in a total of 3120 H1-B visas. The assertion was that this could not be possible and indicated faulty data, but upon much analysis and debate, it became apparent that not only was this possible, but that it was highly likely that it was in fact correct.
It became apparent that MANY foreign owned companies had filed multiple applications for visas using the same job title and start date. This was not what we saw in relation to US OWNED companies, but chiefly from FOREIGN owned companies. Now, to get back to the FIRST company we looked at.
The company describes themselves as having a software development center in India and in Austin, TX, with sales offices scattered throughout the United States. They mention that they have 300+ engineers between India and Austin, yet they applied for 3120 visas for "Programmer/Analysts" for ALL of their locations in the US, even though offices other than Austin were supposedly "sales" offices.
A link to that info is provided below..
Take A Stand: Vote against H1B, Boycott H1B Companies
It was later shown that there was ANOTHER Indian company with an even shadier pattern, and that although they were listed as a gift and advertising company, they were bringing people into the US as "Programmer/Analysts".
One would have to wonder what those "extra" visas might be utilized for. It might not be too hard for a terrorist to purchase a work visa on the blackmarket in order to enter the United States unnoticed and unchallenged. It boggles the mind as to the number of them that might already be here...
A GAO investigation has uncovered MASSIVE fraud in the immigration system, and has reported that it is RAMPANT and "out of control". Yet NO enforcement action apparently has been taken.
From Immigration fraud 'out of control' - General Accounting Office slams INS for rampant problems
"The General Accounting Office has concluded that immigration fraud is rampant, even helping to open the door for terrorism, and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service has no idea how to get it under control."
In the Goverment Executive Magazine article, INS, GAO say immigration benefit fraud is pervasive , it is said that;
"The agency does not know the extent of the fraud, and has failed to provide its field offices with guidance in two key areas: how to conduct investigations of fraud and how to use technology to manage and share information about ongoing cases, the January report said. The INS, which has four service centers and 33 district offices that process applications and petitions for benefits, also hasn’t developed performance measures to use in offices responsible for investigating fraud, GAO said."
Now if WE can find a few questionable cases simply by looking at the LCA data and analyzing what we see here on Free Republic, I can't see why those whose job it is to look into these matters can't do a bit better.
I'd certainly say that there is NO reason WHATSOVER for the government to get expanded powers with the stated result of prying deeper into our personal lives if they can't manage and utilize the tools that they already have.
Yup. With Hillary pulling the levers we'd have nothing to worry about.
Ah, THAT Admiral Poindexter. I wonder how things are in Mena these days?
That is true. OTOH, if a system like this had been in place in the 60's Hillary might not be in a position to do any lever pulling.
They knew damned well who Hillary was and what she stood for. As Hugh Rodham's kid (and a big bitch on campus), she was obvious. It happened anyway, and let that be a lesson to you here.
You have a poor memory of the 60s. I remember well the FBI cameras taking pictures of protestors at the Novermber 7 Vietnam Day protest in San Francisco. I was one of the stupid kids in that crowd.
The only people that make me nervous are panty-waist cowards willing to give the government unlimited power so they can can feel safe.
Actually, this sort of initiative might be a good thing in the long run. Eventually it will be abused and people will fear it. People hate that which they fear. The monster we're creating for ourselves in the name of 3,000 dead New Yorkers (one of whom was a personal friend) should be hated and feared.
Right now it's being embraced by power/freedom grabbing bureaucrats encouraged by a spoiled, easily frightened populace.
That is the reality of open borders. Without screening who arrives in the U.S., the government must watch everyone. This is an entirely logical consequence of the government's foolishness with regard to immigration.
Those that give up liberty for percieved security deserve neither liberty or secutity. I see a dictatorship comming.
Actually, that sounds a lot like TIPS, which, regrettably, did come from the homeland security.
What's with these folks anyway? Did they think "1984" was a How-To manual?
You are gullible. This information will be used for anything and everything. Those that have power abuse it. Say something they don't like...Don't comply with something they want you to and bam... I guess you have forgotten about the attacks that were launched on anyone who was a threat to the Clinton's.
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