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What's Your Terrorism Quotient?
unassimilatible writes "From the Department of Pre-Crime, the AP reports: before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange), a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists - sparking some investigations and arrests. The 'high terrorism factor' scoring system also became a key selling point for the involvement of the database company, Seisint Inc., in the Matrix project. According to Seisint's presentation, dated January 2003 and marked confidential, the 120,000 names with the highest scores were given to the INS, FBI, Secret Service and Florida state police. Seisint and the law enforcement officials who oversee Matrix insist that the terrorism scoring system ultimately was kept out of the project, largely because of privacy concerns."
From TFA:
" He said Matrix, which has 4 billion records, merely speeds access to material that police have always been able to get from disparate sources, and does not automatically or proactively finger suspects."
where do terrorists get their money?
if you buy gasoline, it may come from YOU
I agree, but it looked familiar so I googled for it.. There is a copy at least here, which looks like a copy/repost itself.
This is a troll and/or flamebait. Regardless of whether you agree with its contents or not. Someone, or multiple someones, are just reposting it wherever they damn well feel like it.
For instance, it was also posted in the story about Intel's patent problems (here).
It's probably ripped off from somewhere else by someone looking to stir up trouble or artificially inflate their own ego by watching some post of theirs to slashdot get modded up. I'd suggest modding it down just for the fact that its most likely ripped off from somewhere and blanket posted wherever the AC thinks he can score up a few mod points. He just got lucky with this story, don't give him the satisfaction.
here
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
My girlfriend and I were asked to take part in the Nielsen TV survey. They give you $5 or $10 to participate (no big deal, but it it is at least somewhat of a "reward"). The other interesting thing is that you can tell them how many TVs you have in your house. They give you one diary for each of these. I said 5 so they sent us diarys. She watches The Daily Show, South Park, Chapelle Show, BBC News and I watch Adult Swim (I work until 12:30 AM).
Saying that only complete losers take part is pretty short sighted. I never feel like a loser when I take part in a survey. It's not like the people go out and seek to be a part of the survey because they feel like they need to be heard. We are just the sort of people that will listen to a person conducting a survey and to help in the study. Insightfull my ass. If you think that most of the people are uneducated and eldery you must not understand how random samples work.
I'm a UK citizen, living (with a Green Card, happily married) in the USA. Prior to 9/11, I could travel easily within the country - rarely stopped, security were somewhat courteous, and life was easy. Since 9/11, I can't make it through a single airport without being taken aside for a full search! Last time, I asked why - and was told that I'm in a database of likely travel threats. The only connection I have to terrorism is that I authored my Master's thesis (back in '98) on Terrorism and Democracy (the basic thesis was that terrorism is extra-effective against Western-style Democracies because panic reactions to acts of terror tend to remove the freedoms on which the society is based; terrorism therefore 'wins' against the Democracy because the rights of the citizens are increasingly compromised until the society is so locked down as to not be free at all. I really didn't think it would be that prophetic!). I can't find any way to have myself removed from this database, so now I travel Greyhound!
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