Slashdot Mirror
Don't Worry, We're Not From The Government
PolarBear3 writes "It seems that MSNBC.com is reporting that the government (U.S.) is looking to the private sector to data mine against it's [citizens|terrorists] since they are prevented by law from doing so themselves. Two quotes: 'People in the government, very much so in the Justice Department, have been playing out a lust for information that is not consistent with who we have been as a nation' & 'A range of laws limits how government can collect and use information on its citizens. The private sector, by contrast, operates under fewer restrictions.' Seems to show a nation fighting itself."
This is sadly VERY OLD news... a huge firm in FL doing it ages (gigantic cross referenced system, including "6 degree-of seperation telephone "buddy" connections) and addresses etc.
They first started doing it for the CIA.
They have huge amounts of hard drive storage and lots of programmers.
now they sell to all big brother agencies... to SPY on americans on a per-lookup action.
The us is just "buying access"not administering the sickeningly complete database (all utility bills, all credit card transactions, all bank accounts, all phone call records (including local, etc etc)
I told you guys on slashdot about RFID transmitters in tires a complete year ago and everyone called me a liar until finally all the truth came out (the us gov to track car movement by RFIDs in tores at canadian borders and on I-75 and in bay area california).
I will not reveal the FLA corp. BUT its a fact... semi-first hand knowledge.
This seems to be of dubious legality.
If government is prohibited by law from gathering this sort of intelligence for itself, using information gathered by others seems a flimsy defense against the law. If an FBI agent, paid by the government, snoops around it's illegal. But if a grocery store, paid by the government, gives you the info it is legal? I don't buy it.
Every credit card application I get in the mail has a little check box and requires my signature: "I authorize ----- to check my credit record and verify the information provided on this application....." So if companies can't check my credit rating w/o my approval, how is the government going to get it, as the article suggests?
This is a weak end-run around existing legal protections. While I would like to think that when the next airplane explodes in a huge ball of flame the citizenry will say "Wait! You told us we gave up our freedoms for protection. If you can't do that, we at least want to be able to fly unmolested!" But I fear all we'll hear is a government cry of "See? We've saved you from everything up to this, but we need more information to stop these attacks in the future." and the people will say "Ok, if you say so."
The Republicans are distracting everyone from their machinations by beating up on Iraq. The Democrats are meekly going along with it in some misguided attempt to "show support for our troops" when any idiot could tell you the best way to support the troops is to send them back home where there aren't people shooting at them, and spend that war money sending their kids to better schools.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
I believe it's MI6 not M16.
not to nitpick or anything
I am.
I know we have some dodgy stuff going on here as well but at least our privacy legislation is far more developed over here. Particularly with respect to an individuals rights over the data kept on them.
We also have a government and judicary who is more likely to take on and prosecute big business than in the US. If you want to see some examples (relating to food safety) then read Fast Food Nation to see how big business in the US can literally get away with murder or occasionally have to pay a ridiculously small fine...
U.S. Eyes Personal Commercial Data in Terror Search
Sun March 30, 2003 09:43 AM ET
I don't understand why it is that when a company enters into a work contract they are not held to the same standards of the employer.
-= alphaFlight =-
The US government has been doing this for decades. It may be illegal, but they've been bypassing the law. There is the UKUSA agreement: the US and the UK spy on each others' citizens then swap the information with each other. So yes, the NSA and M16 really does filter through your email and some phone calls to boot.
,organised crime. A bit of imagination in the name of "law enforcement" means governments don't need to bypass any laws to data mine and swap information with each other.
Of course they have, so has the UK government. Information is publicly available for download, such as the Bank of England sanctions file, OFAC sanctions file (Office of Foreign Assets Control - US Treasury), CIA listed Chief of States, GAS (Gone Away Suppression File), Associations and Alias File . . . the list is huge. This only scratches the surface, however.
UK Data Protection offers great protection for the public in terms of what data can be held about them, how it is held and for how long it can be stored. But if that data is necessary for law enforcement then goodbye civil liberties!
Data protection states Bureaus cannot go "trawling" for information, it has to be flagged up by something. So to get round it use a sophisticated matching engine, cross-match all of this data, find inconsitencies and then flag it up as needing further investigation. Set really poor matching rules and the amount of information you can legally flag up for investigation increases. AKA data trawling without actually trawling.
Law Enforcement crosses international boundaries, as does crime. The governmenrt needs to monitor communications to detect, for example, money laundering. Research shows money laundering is linked to drug trafficking, terrorism
~~~~~~~~~ "I must create my own system, or be enslav'd by another man's." William Blake, Jerusalem.
This study was really one of those government-funded studies that's always in progress. They just send some guys out to buy the same exact products from several stores in local communities. The big news in the last couple of years is that prices at stores (in my area) like FoodMax and Publix are, on the whole, about 30% cheaper than prices at Kroger or Food Lion. Even the discount savings using the card only knocks off about 10% of the average total bill.
(I do not have the data to back this up; these numbers are recalled to the best of my memory. This means that the best this post can do is get you to think about it and investigate it. I've already done so for myself, and I've made my decision about it. I only use my store cards to purchase alcohol and condoms.)
That line has been blurring steadily since I have been alive. I think Jello Biafra said it best:
"We are living in New Corporate Feudalism."
(And just in case you have never heard of him, Jello Biafra was/is: the lead singer of The Dead kennedy's, San Francisco mayorial candidate, spoken word performer, World Trade activist and owner of Alternative Tentacles Records - the home of Noam Chomsky's recording archive)
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Wired Magazine had an interesting article on one such "contractor" that the CIA uses recently:h tml
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/gunhire.
This space for rent.
The US government has been doing this for decades.
Furthermore, the US government has been outsourcing all sorts of stuff to the private sector in order to get around certain "issues". For an interesting segue, check out a company called Dyncorp. These guys are the ones in the jungles of S. America fighting the drug war (to get around stuff like Iran Contra), taking care of police action in Bosnia, and guarding Hamid Karzai. Interesting stuff, because from the coverage, you might suspect that these guys are American soldiers. They're not.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Jesus, the USA is not a democracy, it s a REPUBLIC
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. It is majority rules all the time, and you're screwed with the minority vote. In a republic, you divide the country into smaller voting blocks, each of which has the power to create rules for the locality. That way, if I look out at the insane decisions made over there in California, I can thank my lucky stars that I live on the east coast, where my ruleset is different.
And all of you that go bonkers that a private company is being used to collect information on the citizens of this country... I assume you've heard of a credit report? Oh yeah, that history of your credit worthiness, that is passed from bank to bank to determine if you can be trusted. It is created by, maintained by, and proofed by the public, which is 100x better than anything the government could throw together. There's 100s of companies that'll help you review your credit reports (judging by the spam) to keep your data square. I would RATHER that the private sector correlates the data, because that way I know I have a say in it's collection, and that it's being done right.
That's the point of the article: what if a bank does locate something fishy, for instance someone opens an account with a visa and suddenly has tons of money rolling through... the private sector has no enforcement responsibilities, that's the government's job. I don't see anything in the article saying that either sector is going to be collecting MORE data, it's just tying the two together so we can all do a better job at tracking down the true criminals.
I work in the IT group of a financial firm, members of our department have been tasked with running our base of clients through software that attempts to match them against known suspects wanted by various U.S. goverment departments such as the FBI and Secret Service as well as agencies of foreign government. If we find matches we are to freeze the assets of the individuals in question and notify the U.S. government. This are all to be done in accordance with the USA PATRIOT act.
The problem we ar having is that the software gives you a confidence rating of how sure it is that this person is actually the person wanted in connection with a crime. We are an IT department we have no legal powers to nor the means to investigate this individuals to insure that we are not freezing assets of innocent people. Thus far we have been holding back on actually freezing accounts until we have more information but with the specter of government fines being placed against we are eventually going to have to act.
I don't like the idea of the government having private citizens doing their dirty work. As I said earlier I have no investigative authority nor the means to perform investigations. This means that we need to make poorly educated decisions based only upon matching name(s) and addresses against those that the government is looking for. Eventually some one is going to get burned and have a potentially good name and reputation drug through the mud.
right this minute I am working on a program for a professor that is doing work with UNL on datamining weather and drought information. She has been contacted by the NSA, they are interested in her datamining techniques for tracking terrorist activity. Crazy stuff.
Sir Timbly of Cannatuna, offical Knight of the Heptagonal Table