Down With Citizen Database (TIA: Attempts for Data Mining Moratorium or Funding Suspension)

Wired.com ^ | 1/17/2003 | Ryan Singel

[dirtboy]

Bills, not words, define the latest criticism of the U.S. government's controversial Total Information Awareness program.

Seeking to catch terrorists before they strike, the research program aims to develop data-mining and pattern-matching tools to search databases that track American citizens' purchases, doctor's visits and travel itineraries. It is the signature project of the Information Awareness Office, which operates under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, commonly known as DARPA.

[mrsmith]

You're welcome.

There are medicines available to help those few of you earthlings who suffer these severe reactions to our Bilderberger_TM mind-control satellite rays.
Contact your local human medicine practitioner.

[steve-b]

While opposition to the program has been bipartisan, no Republican has yet signed on to any of these bills.

They had better do so, or introduce their own bills, PDQ. Letting the 'Rats own this issue would be a PR fiasco.

[steve-b]

Perhaps the points made in the article could be countered here.

Well, first you would need to find any actual point to this, or any other, article in the Weak Substandard.

One need only consider some of the more obvious pairs of mutually exclusive assertions from this article:

If John Doe placed several calls to Mohamed Atta before 9/11, that information would most certainly be stored for future reference, and any other of Mr. Doe's transactions with Islamic radicals would be flagged.
The program would sever names and other personal information from transactions.

Islamic terrorists wear no uniforms, carry no particular passport,
TIA would allow investigators to identify, say, visa holders from terror-associated countries

[rah-rah-rah context] Oversight would be built into the system.
[scornful context] Senator Ron Wyden introduced an amendment last week to defund TIA until Congress reviews it

[af_vet_rr]

I work with multi-terabyte marketing databases for a living. I think this program will never work as intended, and instead would probably be used as a lookup database against political opponents if it ever were to be implemented.

I work with databases/networking as well, and putting everything into one big database - it would be just too easy for people to use and abuse. I believe it's technically possible within a couple of years, but I think it'll also be abused to hell and back by everybody, from higher-ups going after opponents, to your local police department/BATF keeping tabs on who's buying what.

[jackbill]

Perhaps the points made in the article could be countered here.

I doubt that they can. Paranoia seems to reign here on FR.

[rmvh]

Re your # 18....

As you may understand, personal freedom has limits and boundaries which shift in time based on national threats as determined by those we elect to facilitate the protection everyone...e.g increased airport search of your baggage even though you had absolutely nothing to say about the increase....debarkation of troops who really don't want to leave home to be put in harms way but do so whether they like it or not....imprisonment at Gitmo without trial even though the people there might not be happy about it..etc.

Of course the foregoing isn't recognized or understood by anarchists, many recent immigrants (legal and illegal), limosuine liberals, and people who abhor the military....all of whom believe their personal freedom has no bounds and requires no personal investment.

Nonetheless, please do have a pleasant day.

[rmvh]

Re your # 15...Agree

But I think something has to be done to improve airport security...The present system implemented by the "Moron-in-Chief" Norm Mineta...is an expensive farce which does little to improve air safety.

I know we can't do what Israel does for a variety of reasons but we might study their system and borrow some good points. I think profiling would enable more efficient use of personnel and equipment at screening points to facilitate vastly improved security and less hassle for the innocent traveler who would be pre-screened and provided with a card to enable less intrusive search for each flight to be taken.

[rmvh]

Re your # 14.. " The amount of data involved is immense, complex, and very difficult to collate.

The foregoing is true...nonetheless computer technology might make it useful by ascertaining trends and focal points of danger for more direct inspection not otherwise possible.

Some points you make are valid...TIA in research mode would hopefully indicate whether it would be cost effective for national security.

[dirtboy]

Here's an attempt to apologize for TIA...Perhaps the points made in the article could be countered here.

From the article in question:

-Never, ever suggest an alternative. Islamic terrorists wear no uniforms, carry no particular passport, and live inconspicuously among the target population for years.

First of all, this is actually a good argument AGAINST TIA. Since I know how marketing databases work, a few easy precautions, such as paying in cash and avoiding giving out personal information whenever possible, meaans I almost never get telemarketing calls, and the majority of junk mail I get comes primarily from gift magazine subscriptions. The reason most Americans have so much data available on them is that they do not try to create a disconnect between their purchases and their identity. However, a savvy terrorist, aware of the existence of TIA, can take steps similar to the ones I take avoid detection. If TIA were to try to track store transactions (including cash), it would require a massive re-engineering of every POS system in the country, not just use of existing marketing data, and it would require presentation of ID for every purchase made in the country. Businesses would resist this along with citizens.

In addition, this argument by the author is a strawman. I am a critic of TIA, and I have offered a viable alternative - have the feds come up with ways to better analyze their existing data stream, as opposed to getting even more information when they cannot even sift through what they are already getting.

[dirtboy]

I believe it's technically possible within a couple of years,

To create the database as envisioned is possible. To use it as envisioned is, IMO, not. It would not be a data warehouse, it would be more of a data landfill and modelling would be way too general for what DARPA envisions. But it would, as you alluded, be a dandy lookup database, where you have a name and want information, but that's not what is being sold to the American public.

[dirtboy]

TIA in research mode would hopefully indicate whether it would be cost effective for national security.

The feds cannot even handle their existing information stream. The answer to such a problem is not to therefore acquire more information, but to figure out how to better analyze the existing stream. In that regard, I would support an initiative by DARPA to come up with better ways to mine the existing intelligence gathered by various agencies of the U.S. government against foreign nationals and aliens in this country. But I would have it stop there.

[dirtboy]

And here's a new company hoping to cash in on some of the $$$ that will be flung at this effort. The CEO has an interesting history, to say the least...

To say the least indeed. They're going after a chunk of that $500 million in the Homeland Security Act budget for research.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the "Protect Our Privacy" ping, dirtboy.

As a part of the The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996^, the gvt is supposed to set up a database to track all medical insurance claims. They are having a bunch of trouble doing this. This was originally supposed to be in place by 1999. They delayed it because the various software vendors were working like crazy to patch their code to handle the Y2K event.

Since then it's pretty much been, "one step forward, two steps backwards." Last I checked, it will be sometime after 2005^ before the system is "up and running."

Now, medical insurance claims represent a tiny fraction of what TIA would be. Consider the number of times in a month the average American uses a credit card versus the number of medical insurance claims they create. TIA will have hundreds, if not thousands, the number of transactions as HIPAA. I think you see my point: if "they" are having trouble with just medical insurance claims, can you imagine what a total fiasco TIA will be?

By the time it's all said and done, HIPAA will have taken more than 10 years to implement. With TIA having many, many more transactions, I wonder how long it will take? Maybe 2030? And how many Billions of our precious tax dollars will have been poured into this black hole?