WASHINGTON, July 11, 2007
FBI Details Data Mining Efforts
Bureau Discloses How It Searches Databases To Help Identify Potential Terrorists
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(CBS/AP)
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Records about identity thefts, real estate transactions, motor vehicle accidents and complaints about Internet drug companies are being searched for common threads to aid law enforcement officials, the Justice Department said in a report to Congress on the agency's data-mining practices.
In addition, the report disclosed government plans to build a new database to assess the risk posed by people identified as potential or suspected terrorists.
The chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the Justice Department said the database was "ripe for abuse." The American Civil Liberties Union immediately derided the quality of the information that could be used to score someone as a terror threat.
The report, sent to Congress this week, marked the department's first public detailing of six of its data-mining tools, which look for patterns to catch criminals. The disclosure was required by lawmakers when they renewed the USA Patriot Act in 2005. It comes as the Justice Department faces sharp criticism from Congress and civil liberties advocates for violating peoples' privacy rights in terror and spy investigations.
Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said the databases are strictly regulated to protect privacy rights and civil liberties.
"Each of these initiatives is extremely valuable for investigators, allowing them to analyze and process lawfully acquired information more effectively in order to detect potential criminal activity and focus resources appropriately," Boyd said in a statement.
All but one of the databases — the one to track terrorists — have been up and running for several years, the report showed. The lone exception is the System to Assess Risk, or STAR, program to rate the threat posed by people already identified as suspected terrorists or named on terror watch lists.
The system, still under construction, is designed to help counterterror investigators save time by narrowing the field of people who pose the greatest potential threat and will not label anyone a terrorist, Boyd said.
But it could be based, in part at least, on commercial or public information that might not be accurate — potentially ranking an innocent person as a terror threat. Watch lists, for example, have mistakenly identified people as suspects based on their similar names or birthdates to terrorists.
The Justice report also leaves open the possibility that the STAR program might draw up lists of terror suspects based on information from other sources, including from Data Mart. The report described Data Mart as a collector of government information, but also travel data from the Airlines Reporting Corp. and other information from private data-aggregators like ChoicePoint Inc. Private data aggregators often sell commercial credit records as well as other databases, like voter and vehicle registration.
"When you put bad information into a system and you don't have any mechanism of ensuring the information is of high quality, you're certain to get bad information spit out on the back end," said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani. "And that has profoundly negative consequences for the individuals who are wrongly identified as potential terrorists."
The five other databases detailed in the report include:
The 38-page report was four months late in being sent to Congress for required oversight. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said it "raises more questions than it answers."
"Unfortunately, the Congress and the American public know very little about these and other data mining programs, making them ripe for abuse," said Leahy, D-Vt.
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- When the internet was introduced to society you would have thought all of these rules, laws, and processes would have been in place, and all levels of law enforcement would have been involved in preparing for such an impressive achievement.
Instead, it was just implemented by those whose greed impressed their way straight to the consumer, bypassing those who enforce and keep these laws, which I might point out are now feeling the brunt of it all.
We have an invisible world with people who hide in their house, office or work, and conduct illegal activity, of all %u201Csorts.%u201D
There are how many websites established, and how many main frame servers with experts running these databases. Which I like to point out, they are likely not sitting there policing or scrutinize them, since there are no laws to enforce.
The internet could have been a wonderful thing but, instead we have a lot of darkness wandering through countless wires, with the force of Ram behind it.
Pray for Peace. God Bless You. - Reply to this comment
- From day one, it was the intention of the Bush Administration and the Justice Dept. to circumvent Constitutional Law and the Bill of Rights & use this tool for the purpose of all type of general law enforcement and not limit it's use only to suspected terrorist activities.
When Constitutional Law is circumvented or disregarded as this group of pirates in the Bush Administration and the GOP in general have done, it opens the gates of hell for all type of abuse by governmental agencies.
Because these policies have now been ingrained within Justice Dept. policies, this situation will get much worse for many years to come before it gets better. - Reply to this comment
- terrorists, dissidents, Same difference to w!
I wonder how many time's I've made the list because of posts on here? :-) - Reply to this comment
- I HOPE EVERY AMERICAN AND ALL OUR ELECTED ARE GOING TO READ THIS, AND SEE THAT THIS ADMINASTRATION JUST KEEPS LAUGHING IN OUR FACES.WHILE THOUSANDS OF OUR TROOPS STILL DIE.
Last December, when Bush rebuffed a bipartisan exit strategy presented by the Iraq Study Group, he said he would leave the decision to withdraw from Iraq to his successor.
That question is "not going to face this government," Bush said, chuckling slightly at a news conference with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "because we made up our mind. We've made that part clear. It'll face future governments. There will be future opportunities for people to say, 'Well, it's not worth it. Let's just retreat.' "
Since then, nearly 700 more American soldiers have died in a war that has now lasted more than four years, lost the lives of more than 3,600 U.S. troops, cost $10 billion a month -- and cost Republicans control of the House and Senate.
TIME FOR A AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO CHANGE OUR GOVERMENT AND PUT AMERICANS FIRST INSTEAD OF OTHER PLACES IN THE WORLD.
CONGRESS DOEN'T CARE ABOUT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN THAT IS JUST MAKEING IT BY.
IT IS TIME FOR ALL AMERICANS TO STAND UP AND PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR COUNTRY.
WE KNOW CONGRESS WONT...............THEY DONT CARE ABOUT OUR TROOPS BEING MURDERD BY THIS ADMINASTRATION - Reply to this comment
- "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-- James Madison
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
-- James Madison
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
-- Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall
at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII - Reply to this comment
- Gee, they have a database for everything except what employers are breaking the law and hiring illegal aliens, big surprise.
- Reply to this comment
- didn't they name the computer 'the beast' as in the book of Revelations all knowing abomination of desolation in the high place?
theeeyyyy'rrreee hhheeerrreee !!!!!!! HA!
ya'll best be gettin' ready for the rest of the Book... God hep US each an every one, AMEN - Reply to this comment
- Who and where does it say this database is going to be public? Welcome to 1984.
Posted by radiob at 02:09 PM : Jul 11, 2007
You're probably right. Just wishful thanking.
It ought to be though! - Reply to this comment
- That way we can check the data base and find the best doctor, without wasting our time and money.
Posted by slim1h2o
Who and where does it say this database is going to be public? Welcome to 1984. - Reply to this comment
- They need to write a computer program to track doctors also. 1) see which ones are accepting payola from pharmaceutical co's. 2) Find which doctors that won't/don't/can't do their jobs, so we can kick them out of the profession.3) Find the ones that make stupid mistakes, i.e. leaving instruments in patients during operations.
That way we can check the data base and find the best doctor, without wasting our time and money. - Reply to this comment
