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Using Consumer Data to Hunt Terrorists

Posted by Hemos on from the misguided-sacrifices dept.

A reader writes: "Our biggest privacy issues might not be Internet auditors after all. The federal government may be using consumer data to hunt for terrorists, including private information with the cooperation of companies or individual employees. Apparently an IT/marketing employee turned over buying records from a national grocery store chain to investigators and the company hid that violation from its customers. The story mentions, toward the end, the Gilmore lawsuit that was discussed on /. but goes way beyond that issue. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0230/baard.php "

2 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Inch by inch... by Analog+Penguin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...our rights erode away. When will enough people pick up on what's going on to actually SAY or DO something about it? Maybe you can call this a small step from yesterday (I don't), but when are we going to stop and look at how many "small steps" we've taken??

  2. Straw into Gold? by InfoGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful
    LMAO. Please. I'm supposed to be worried by this? Loyalty card programs have been around a while and have become infamous for generating huge heaps of useless data. Two years ago Safeway in Great Britain dropped its program because "We were collecting an awful lot of data that didn't mean anything".(WSJ, 6/19/02).

    Now some marketing drone has foisted what is quite likely an equally worthless heap of data onto the Feds. Am I supposed to be worried that they'll be any better at data mining? I'm more worried about what they'll miss while they're wasting my tax dollars writing code to find out who bought falafel with their Pampers.

    Don't call EFF. Call John Stossel and Citizens Against Government Waste (http://www.cagw.org)