Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiLawmakers are questioning whether a proposed FBI anti-terrorist program is worth the price, both in taxpayer dollars and the possible loss of Americans' privacy.
The National Security Analysis Center (NSAC) would bring together nearly 1.5 billion records created or collected by the FBI and other government agencies, a figure the FBI expects to quadruple in coming years, according to an unclassified FBI budget document obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com. 
Those numbers alone raised concerns from two congressmen, Reps. Brad Miller, D-Calif., and James Sensenbrenner, Jr., R-Wisc., the chair and ranking member of the oversight panel of the House Science and Technology Committee.
The FBI has a track record of improperly -- even illegally -- gathering personal information on Americans, most recently through the widespread abuse of so-called National Security Letters, the two men noted in a letter to Congress' investigative body, the Government Accountability Office.
Miller and Sensenbrenner asked GAO to determine whether the NSAC will include records on U.S. citizens, and whether there are protections in place to make sure all the data in the program was legally collected.
Of further concern to the two congressmen are the FBI's stated hopes to "pro-actively" mine the data to find terrorists using "predictive" analysis, according to its budget request, an unproven method according to experts and even the U.S. intelligence chief's office.
In theory, predictive analysis involves mapping a known pattern of terrorist behavior -- for instance, the sequence and timing of such mundane activities as bank transactions and travel purchases -- against a massive collection of such records like the NSAC databases. If an individual's actions match the pattern, they can be considered a suspect, even if they have no known ties to any suspected terrorists or known terrorist groups.
Such a method would help identify "sleeper cells," the FBI claims in its request -- secret groups of terrorists living innocuously within the United States, waiting for a signal from a terrorist group leader to assemble and strike.
But to date the approach has not proven workable. So far, terrorism researchers "cannot readily distinguish the absolute scale of normal behaviors" for terrorists or ordinary Americans, conceded a 2006 document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and obtained by National Journal magazine. In other words, no one can figure out how terrorists act differently from normal Americans.
"We had no idea how on God's earth you would characterize and capture normal behavior," a former researcher for the ill-fated Total Information Awareness (TIA) program told the magazine last October.
TIA, the government's first attempt at anti-terrorism data mining on a massive scale, had its funding stripped by Congress over widespread concerns it would violate privacy laws. The National Security Agency -- arguably a more tech-savvy outfit than the FBI, whose computer woes are legendary -- continues to pour millions into data mining research.
The FBI has requested $12 million for its NSAC project. That amount would pay for 90,000 square feet of space and an additional 53 employees, according to its budget request. Whether Congress will approve the funds has yet to be determined.
The bureau did not respond to a request for comment.
Copyright © 2007 ABCNews Internet Ventures
17 Comments so far
Show AllAnother example of rational mind without heart gone wild.
Thanks, Poet, for the great idea, turning things around on the "powerful" and Siouxrose, for the summary of one simple way in which things can go altogether wrong (which could all too likely prove true!) and the notion of de-railing the system.
Worry also what this program will have on everyone in ten years then think about in twenty years as computers advance. Data mining...um yeah...but first they collect all the information first before they can mine it. Who says this is freedom? It is the beginnibgs of fear...in twenty years.
Unfortunately, with the Democrats and Republicans in control of Congress, 'raised eyebrows' is about all we can expect from this. Both parties have been completely complicit with ok'ing this sort of stuff all along. Don't hold your breath waiting for the Dems to do anything. If their pollsters tell them they might gain an edge in the elections, then you might see a hearing and some press releases. But the one thing that's perfectly clear about the Democrats is that what's legal and what's good for the country doens't matter a damn to them. They clearly and often tell everyone that the only thing that matters is the next election.
And don't expect anything to change after the next election, because regardless of what they say, after the next election the only thing that will matter to the Dems will then be the next election after that.
If you don't like this. Don't be a member of either the Democratic or Republican parties. Don't donate to either party. Don't volunteer for either party. Don't vote for any candidates from either party. Put your membership, your money, your time and your votes into a party that actually gives a damn about America and Americans.
PS ... If you want to know about the FBI and the civil rights movement, read Howard Zinn. He was there in the civil rights movement. And accurately reports how the FBI was not doing a thing to help protect civil rights workers or to enforce the constitution.
PPS ... this article connects with the 140,000 plus National Security Letters the FBI has issued. That's where they are getting the data for the system.
With all the surveilliance in the US/UK, cameras, data mining, warrantless spying, etc. you'd think that white collar crime (especially in the financial industries), corruption in politics and the drug trade would be totally cleaned up by now. Why not?
While liberals debate which of the lesser evil's candidate to support, the money-power's class warfare has gone nuclear. Unless we the people can peacefully rescue our government from oligarchy politicians it's 1984 now. Mike Gravel has the plan. And the Greens put it in practice.
Nicely said MetalDog. A well turned phrase that made me laugh out loud was just what the Dr. ordered today. Thank you!
Control freaks. They just cannot tolerate the randomness of life.
This is just profiling on a different level and it has the same intrinsic faults as racial profiling. When you have two populations with a wide range of some variable characteristic that you measure, the overlap between the two groups will be so great that it won't be worth using that measure to distinguish between them. Sure, there may be a statistical difference between the groups, but there are so many similarities that most of the comparisons will show them to be the same.
The majority of the people in East Germany during the Soviet period were informing on their neighbors for favors etc.
The authorities followed suspects and connected them to each other until everyone was followed, suspected, spied on, had phone tapped at one time on another.
As a taxpayer I don't want to pay for this silly shit even if it could work. In the flood of information it is unlikely that the important information will be acted on in time to protect anyone.
I would not give up any liberty for security. I would not feel secure with the entire nations activities recorded.
Why did the Dimocrap cross the road?
To get to the lobbyists side.
Why did the Ripoffagain cross the road?
To get to the lobbyists side.
I rest my case...
The FBI is now, and has always been, a political animal. In the 1970s, when this power was exposed, we should all have learned our lesson and shut it down. Certainly, we should never have taken off the restraints on its power as we are doing now. The FBI tragets dissent of all kinds. If you consider resistance to the status quo, or the rights of Native Americans, or African Americans as threats to the United States, then the FBI is a completely trustworthy organization, protecting and preserving YOUR American. If, however, you have interests beyond those of global, corporate Empire, it is likely that you are turning over information to people who will watch you if you protest nuclear power, or demonstrate for renewable energy.
There was an article on CNN's website about on May 27th, 2007 on the record of Homeland Security. Considerably less than 1% of cases brought before the immigration courts involved terrorism. According the research group quoted in the CNN article, "12 of 814,073 charged in past three years faced terrorism charges." If we consider this hit ratio for the department of Homeland Security, I think we can imagine what to expect from the FBI data mining project.
Of course, we see the FBI portrayed as heroes in popular culture. Consider the movie, "Mississippi Burning," where the FBI are the heroes of Civil Rights as an example. The FBI, as we all know, acted to disgrace and assassinate African Americans seeking justice in the United States. Their role in the Civil Rights Movement was, at the BEST of times, to stay out of it. I doubt we yet know the worst of it, but their role certainly does not match the heroic behavior of Mr. Hackman and Mr. Dafoe. That movie is an insult to the lives of those who DID fight for Civil Rights. But that is the primary function of the FBI: PR. To make themselves appear to be the heroes of American Democracy while operating as a secret political police, limiting our power of free speech and our democratic right to act for change within our Corporate Government. Hoover picked this trait up early in his post as the head of the FBI, pushing for Hollywood films, having heroic books penned and creating a mythology that the FBI was the White Knight of America. But most of its effforts were nothing more than PR.
We would like to pretend that all of the worst practices ended with the death of Hoover. That the FBI felt a sense of shame and moved on to do their proper job after Hoover. But consider that their office building in DC is CALLED the Hoover building. That does not express a sense of shame for their past. It does not express remorse and a break from earlier tactics that fell far below the standards we claim to hold in the United States. I cannot help but wonder, as Ward Churchill faces losing his job in Colorado, if Mr. Chuchill is not the victim of the FBI. Everyone should read his "Agents of Repression" and consider the possibility. Of course, it is an uglier truth if Churchill is simply being fired for his essay suggesting the 9/11 was expected blowback from US foreign policy and the behavior of Corporate America abroad. These days, it appears that everyone is working to distance themself from voices of dissent. That everyone wants to show themselves as "good" and "reasonable" in the eyes of a nation engulfed in a "you're with us or you're against us" mentality. That is the best work of the Secret Police: to convince us to police ourselves.
If we are to have any pretense to liberty and democracy, this program of data mining must be buried, along with the Patriot Act, not in the shadowy depths of government, but in the scrap heap of history. Buried, but not forgotten.
Poet: GREAT idea! And nice to see your wit galvanized. Allow me to refer readers to the fine film done by Terry Gilliam, entitled BRAZIL. That film has become VERY prescient as it shows a modern bleak society where most people are employed by either information retrieval or some other info-tech government-run modality. And as the rich lunch, bombs go off, "another terrorist attack," and so forth. But the really hilarious (and albeit chilling) component of the film is that while a low level bureaucrat is typing someone's profile (for information retrieval), a fly buzzes on his nose which causes him to hit the wrong key, thus misspelling the name of the presumed terrorist, the surveillance forces bust into the wrong home and arrest a very unfortunate man. Torture tactics that would probably make for excellent dinner entertainment for the likes of Rumsfelt, Cheney, Bush & Gonzales take place that end in taking the man's life, and then another info personnel must go to the widow's home both to inform her and BILL her for information "services." Yep. That's the direction all this bull shit is headed. But given the "doin a great job, Brownie" levels of competence in this chain gang of legalized misfits, the data they mine is equally apt to be misused. The question is how erroneously and badly? Maybe we could do a citizens' revolt by pre-empting such efforts where we as a united front all legally change our names to the SAME NAME! Now that'll plug up their system for a while...
re. caption and photo-Mueller speaking at a "Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism" conference....oh, yah, and we are spending ALL this money and WHO is going to be the one's nuking people? US. Why bother. We ARE the enemy!
Raised eyebrows, eh? What's next from those tenacious Congressional Democrats? An indignant sneer, arms akimbo? If they go so far as to verbalize some discontent about the Bush Administration's rampant violation of the law, one might actually mistake them for DEMOCRATS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Big Brother
so, they have no way via data mining to distinguish "terrorists" from the rest of "us"....hmmmm....better invest another 10 or 20 billion in it, and while you are it, keep that data on the rest of "us".
btw, how does a fascist like sensenbrenner verify that data is gathered "legally"?
Yet another abuse of contitutional freedoms needing to be put on the "must rescind" list for congress. What is needed is a new show called "Washington Confidential" where we display all the personal information of congress for discussion. (Like Oprah, we could have a companion magazine!)
Wouldn't you like to know where your representatives spend how much money? How about their real phone and email addresses? The ones that those who absolutely must be able to contact them use.
How about their real net worth, companions, associations, and financial dealings? I am sure that none of this is beyond the capabilities of General Hayden and all the super-patriot and efficient gang at the NSA.
It could definately transform "town meetings" and then maybe our representatives would understand the urgency of this issue.
As Orwell noted in 1984 "only the guilty have something to hide", (not!)