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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."
The ACLU is note worth supporting, as they have an entire division devoted to supporting and promoting racial discrimination against individuals, and there are many instances of them fighting against free speech rights (if the speech of the individual is "religious").
I'd be more interested to know how many people were entered into the system... isn't that pertinent here? I mean, if they only put in 120,000 and they all came back as terrorists, something's probably wrong. Is Osama in that list? Did it pick up anyone we already knew was a terrorist? Just hearing a number as high as 120,000 isn't surprising without more information about the number. Yes, I could RTFA, but with a summary that long, I would have expected at least the number polled to be in there.
stuff |
Most people care about the latest reality tv show. A great many of my Wife's co-workers didn't know about the Abu Ghraib photos, think we found WMDs and that 'about 100 or so' soldiers have died in Iraq.
Yes, a large majority of people are either that dense or simply don't care.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Google this: /. ever met a "terrorist"?
1) This company was started by a drug running felon with ties to the Bush's
2) Read the Contract between Seisint and the Florida Goverment with the MATRIX
3) This company is very, very late with their software project - using terrorism as means to drag it out.
4) 120,000 terrorists in the US? C'mon! Has ANYONE on
5) 3.2 billion dollars a year goes toward "cyber security".
After reading all this, I get soooo disgusted.. I mean, this is SICK!!! How much money is wasted? How the hell do I get a piece of terrorist pie?! Millions of dollars have been lost and never gone to me.
How can the open source community get some of this cash cow? How about a sourceforge project Ivory Tower (the irony of the name would be great)?
-Foo
As someone raised muslim, with a muslim name ( and one that happens to correspond to that of an at-large chechen terrorist ) I'll wager it's time to get out of this country.
You know, that makes me sad. I'm American, I was born here, so were my parents. My father's been in trouble with the law, long ago, and happens to have the #1 most common Muslim name. Regardless, he, like me, loves this country.
I'm no longer practicing ( read: vehement Atheist ) but if all it takes is having a troublesome name, well, it seems then the tide has finally turned. Perhaps this will be America's crystal night?
I'm at a loss for words.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Well, someone has to say it: If you don't like it in the United States, go somewhere else. Nobody is stopping you. I mean, really, if it's that bad here, leave. What are you waiting for? Get out! Go on! Move!
>> people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists
Come again? How does one define an activity that makes you statistically a terrorist?
Is it by the car they drive?
Is it by the job they have?
Is it by their nationality?
Is it by their age?
Is it by their house?
Is it by anything bar the obvious ones, such as actively supporting terrorist activities?
Probably not. They probably picked at almost random 120,000 people and defined them as a 'likelihood of being terrorists'.
The question is who gets to make that choice? To me, it seems that the person(s) who make the choice could be as much of a terrorist as your average next door Jones, yet because they make the choices, they call the shots; they will never be featured in that list.
I would love to know how many of the 120,000 people were -NOT- charged with terrorist activities; i doubt that even 1% of them were arrested with enough evidence to prove it. However, given the current state of the laws, that doesn't matter now, does it?
Why seed the data? Why not let the information be collected the way it's intended, and then compile a list from it? Ok, this system might be rather like the 'big brother' we are all fearing, but currently, most major supermarkets track what you buy almost without you noticing, so its not like this information will be collected obtrusively.
Maybe its time someone out there took a step back and looked at the system they have just partaken in creating, and they just might, possibly, see it as something that shouldn't be.
Someone needs to look at this before the next 'red-ball' has your name on it, because by then, it's too late.
NeoThermic
P.S, is it me, or have they forgotten how to make an acronym? How does one get from Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange to Matrix? To me that makes 'MATIE'...
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
It gets worse. Apparently America's claim to the moral high ground in Iraq is now 'Yes, but Saddam did even worse things in that prison!'
I'm just hearing Squealer say 'Surely you do not want Jones to come back?'
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
C'mon. What do you expect the government to do? Why is it that no one ever offers better solutions? Just gripe and complain.
Even with the 9/11 commisions, we are so focused on "intelligence" - who had it, who didn't, who ignored it, etc. How do you expect agencies to gather accurate intelligence wihtout stepping on some civil liberty toes? I know *in theory* this is wrong (save your Ben Franklin quotes), but what other *practical*, effective means do they have?
Some people always offer up the the "carebear" alternatives - e.g. fostering peace and goodwill to these countries that butcher innocents (READ: sending even more welfare to them). Or isolationism, just ignore them and spend our money at home. (The "la la la, I don't see you...Go away bad man" solution). These stratgies just don't work against these cultures that are based on thousands of years of bloodthirsty tribal agggresion, and later rationalized and justified by a maniacal perversion of religion.
So before you bemoan your supposed injustices, please dazzle us with your alternative practical, effective measures to gather intelligence.
Skynet is, amongst other things, the name of a major satellite communications network used by the UK MoD, about to reach the fifth generation.
I think they choose these names deliberately.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
Funny, I thought the comments would be so completely opposite to this.
...
Good on ya mate. Whether I agree or not (and to be honest, generally I do), you're welcome to your own opinion. And anyones own opinion seems to have become too much of a byword for terrorism lately. Hah! So much for "free bloody speech" eh? Bloody hypochrites.
Terrorists are pricks, but you don't fight them by strenghtening their popular base of support by terrorising innocent people instead. Instead you undermine their base - fight poverty and social injustice - NOT strenghen it. And why do the yanks do such a good job at it - its a pity. American's aren't stupid, on the whole, but by fuck they do a good job of making out they are, by their skewed environment and upbringing it seems. Its a real pity that recent events didn't bring them more into the real world - I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. As they say. They're not the only ones.
Whats the other one? You can't fool all of the people all of the time?
I guess time will tell. The mighty always fall eh? We'll see.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
You know, I don't so much mind the cameras per se. What pisses me off no end is what the police do with the film.
No, it's not Big Brother. Or rather, it is - not in the Orwell sense, but the fucking Channel 4 sense. The police sell the film to TV companies to put together trash TV about drunks making fools of themselves.
If I come out of a pub pissed and throw up into the gutter, I don't mind some copper watching on the security camera. He's a copper - he sees loads of people throw up in gutters. But if the cops decide to sell the footage of me throwing up into a gutter, and it gets on TV, and people who know me, for instance maybe my boss or my dear old grandmother...
Embarrassing at the very least. The fuck are they playing at, selling the footage for entertainment?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You may be interested in this book. Not everything your textbooks say can be trusted, especially if those textbooks are meant for or approved by government schools ("public education" is the politically-correct term).
Well, last time /. ran a diamond story it was said that more money gets to terrorists from the diamond trade than from oil, at least as a percentage of the respective industries. I don't believe any evidence was given to back this up however.
So are they implying that if you get a high score you are going to be arrested and/or have your home raided?
JUST because of some abstract number in a database?.. NOT because you actually have done something..
So this 'suspicion rating' = probable cause?
I would think the ACLU would be all over this..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Anyone care to explain?
Are we censoring the threads now? Will I get booted for making this post??Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
All respondents to this article have been noted.
:-(
From Seisint Inc. system logs:
Querying site...processing HTML...correlating post data with ISP logs...submitting data to database...updating/creating user entries...updating users' Seisint Inc. "terrorist quotient"(tm)...submitting relevant users and data to federal authorities so that they can protect our freedom[sic]!
On a serious note: In a police state where the gov't can snatch anyone they want off the streets and hold them incommuncado, without charges and without access to a lawyer, we have no civil liberties.
To me, articles about such things are no surprise today. The only surprise is that the American people surrendered to fascism so easily.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (www.sun-sentinel.com)
By Nicole Sterghos Brochu
Staff Writer
Posted January 11 2004
The counter-terrorism database is so efficient at analyzing billions of records, so comprehensive in finding links between people and events that some investigators believe it could prevent another attack like 9-11.
Although some intelligence experts are awed by the potential of the so-called Matrix network, others are uncomfortable with the man who built it.
Hank Asher -- a Boca Raton multi-millionaire called a patriot by a former Watergate prosecutor, consulted and admired by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- once smuggled millions of dollars worth of cocaine.
Asher avoided detection and was never charged with a crime during what he calls "the hazy period" of his life. The statute of limitations has long since elapsed on drug-running activities he admits spanned eight months in 1981 and 1982. Those reckless days, he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, drove him to depression and drug and alcohol abuse.
He didn't pay for his crimes in a jail cell, but a price was exacted by years of negative publicity and intense public suspicion. The climax came in August, when Asher walked away from the Matrix so it could proceed unencumbered by its designer's infamy.
Asher, now 52, made peace with himself.
"I go to sleep every night knowing that I've done much more good than harm," he said.
Indeed, Asher's notoriety has done little to deflate his clout among some influential crime-fighters.
Giuliani, now an international crime consultant, uses Asher in the hunt for terrorists. Brian Stafford, the former head of the U.S. Secret Service, is one of a handful of top law enforcement officers who work for Asher's database company. John Walsh, host of the TV show America's Most Wanted, sings Asher's praises.
To understand the contradiction of the public pariah with quiet influence is to understand his road to redemption. It is a path lined with powerful innovations and financial benevolence that have aided the hunt for criminals and the safe return of missing children.
"I have a great admiration for what he's doing, both in finding missing children and in coming up with creative solutions to terrorism, as well as owning up to his mistakes," Giuliani said. "People do a lot of things in life. It's a question of what you can do to make up for it, and Hank has done a lot."
why he smuggled
In his first interview on the drug allegations, Asher said he got into smuggling for the adrenaline rush.
"It seemed like an adventure," he said, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights between bites of nicotine gum at his mansion next to the Royal Palm Polo fields. "I had no idea of the hideousness of drugs."
He got mixed up in the business after "retiring" at age 30 to the Bahamas. Asher moved there after selling the paint contracting business he started at 18 and built into what a 1975 Sun-Sentinel article described as "apparently unmatched anywhere" in the South Florida high-rise market.
In Great Harbour Cay, Asher said, he attracted attention with his plane and his speedboat. Drugs were rampant, he said, and so were offers for easy money flying the contraband into the United States. Asher said he resisted the offers -- until one came from a group of older men with expensive tastes who "ran in social circles that appealed to me."
He said he agreed to do them a favor after, having recklessly spent his paint company proceeds, he borrowed money from them.
An FDLE investigation details how far that favor went. The probe, launched in August and completed in September, was meant to resolve the longstanding rumors of Asher's past, particularly at a time when several states interested in the Matrix were threatening to pull out over the smuggling questions.
The report concluded that Asher piloted up to seven planeloads of cocaine from Colombia into the United States in 1981 and 1982,
The journey is better then the end.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. " This to me says seperation of church and state. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The right to privacy. While the constitution may not be explicit in it's definition of either of these two topics, the tradition of common law, going back to England, gives judges the power to define the law and constitution by creating precedence through judicial decisions.
Depends on the terrorists. In the middle east it's oil, diamonds and some heroin. In South America for at least the FARC it's the greatly over inflated value of drugs caused by prohibition.
If we end the WoD (war on drugs) by legalizing marijuana and making all other drugs available for prescription for maintance (with the execption of antibiotics) the price of drugs would bottom out. Heroin could be purchased from CVS for $5.00 a dose instead $100 off the street. Lower prices means the end of drugs partly funding bad things. The bonus would be a dramatic drop in property crimes. A few years ago in Bern, Switzerland they tried selling heroin directly to addicts for ~$4.50 per dose. Property crimes dropped by 60%.
Without prohibition illegal drugs would cost 100th of their current price and would save the US over 15 billion dollars every year in law enforcement and prison costs. At least an extra 1 billion dollars a year would be made from the taxation of marijuana. BTW, studies in the Netherlands showed that drug use did not increase with an easing supply.
The economic forces of prohibition fund a lot of bad things including terrorism.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Please explain to me how the handful of rusty or unlabelled shells (many of which had leaked their contents 10+ years earlier) we've found in Iraq represents the "Vast stockpile" of banned weapons we were led to believe existed in Iraq? A stockpile, we were told, that was so vast as to allow field commanders to deploy them on "40-minutes notice." If this was true, please explain why none of the ammo caches and dumps we found during the war contained any WMD?
Please also explain to me how the handful of rusty and/or unlabelled (mostly useless) shells we've found represents an immediate threat to the security of the United States?
Please also explain how before the war, Bushie was warning us about nuclear armageddon caused by Saddam Hussein, yet we've found no evidence of an advanced nuclear weapons program. They did possess a stolen, 50-year old Chinese design for a bomb, but they weren't anywhere near the point of being able to fabricate a weapon.
Also, our (just as oppressive) ally Pervez Musharraf actually has several nuclear devices at his disposal. When will we be invading Pakistan? Or is continuity no longer part of the "Bush plan"?
Who did what now?
silly analogy, but to continue with your logic, it's a shame Bush/Rumsfeld etc sprayed the wrong 'fuckers' huh?
Pre-invasion links with Al-Qaida?
uh, no...
Post-invasion links with Al-Qaida?
YEP
Weapons of Mass Destruction?
uhm...
Guerilla war you can't win?
YEP
Welcome to the real world, oh, and in case you forgot, they already fucked up one country after invading, perhaps it's time we made an attempt to guide that one to democracy, or was that not really the intention?
No, they do not. They want to expand their rule into regions of Central Asia. They want to invade Israel and exterminate its people. They want to expand Muslim "law" into traditionally non-Muslim places like the southern Sudan. In already-Muslim places like Turkey, they want to replace secularism with a system where everyone is forced to obey one brand of Islam. These are just a few examples. Extremist Islam is aggressive and expansionist.
"America has done more to cause terrorism than any other country has in recent years, possibly ever"
"Muslim extremists just want to be normal muslims. Normal muslims just want to get on with their lives, like normal everyone-else-on-this-planet."
If they did, they would put down their guns and take up a "live and let live" attitude.
"You don't win friends by beating them up."
If they are already beating you up for the sole reason that you do not worship the Muslim god, then it is part hope for winning them as friends.
"It frustrates me so much when I hear people saying the terrorists want to "destroy america" because they "envy our freedoms" or "hate democracy". "
It may frustrate you, but it is quite true. The terrorist's own speech and documents list as prime reasons for "hating America" such things as America's tolerance of religious freedom. Think about it.... long and hard.
No, America has done much to reduce and minimize terrorism.
That hypothetical conversation will never happen. . . because, if a prosecutor can cite a "national security need," thanks to the USAPATRIOT act, he can get the warrant without ever having to go before a judge.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
The only terrorist attacks that come to my mind that happened in America somewhat recently are the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing. For a grand total of 19 terrorists. And this list brings up a 120,000 potential terrorists.
I would fucking hate to be on that list. These are going to be the people that can't fly because they're blacklisted, that can't get government jobs because they're blacklisted, or who knows, can't take out a mortgage because they're blacklisted. Even though the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor that they aren't a terrorist.
And what exactly do you have to do to get on this list? I mean you could say that Mr. McVeagh (sp?), the only American out of the aforementioned 19 terrorists, was an extremist libertarian...Do we suspect all of the libertarians? Its a sad time for a once free country when you seriosly have to consider what you register [to vote] as because you might end up on some list because even if you're peaceful they're not going to know that.
--HC
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
Truer than you might suspect... I think we may be on the SAME 'wavelength' here.
A pal of mine I went to college with, fairly brilliant programmer then & now, was from Russia pointed this out to me & made me "rethink" my views, even if in jest only @ that time of this statement to him.
I busted on him one day saying "Oh yea, you guys in the U.S.S.R. are prisoners" & he simply stated this:
"You're more tracked here in the U.S. than I ever was in the Soviet Union"
& he was right, it's amazing how tracked (credit cards etc.).
The number of the Beast & all that:
One "cannot buy, nor sell, nor hold a job" etc. unless one has the number on/in one's head or hand.
(Not quite a direct biblical quote, but close enough & I think you infer my meaning...)
WTF? Sounds like a Social Security Number... doesn't it??
APK
Algorithm for determining terrorist tendencies revealed:
... The sad thing is, this is nothing. I could go on for days about various things like these that are in the works, or already in place that can be used to create an evironment that would make the old U.S.S.R. blush (Soviet Russia jokes not withstanding ;-) )
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." --Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1928
---
In some countries it is probably enough to have a different colour of skin..
.... (-yes I do not want to give any example)
... have you ever said something too radical, maybe racist because at a certain age you were influenced by an adult or just a stupid friend ? (a radical music group, or someone in a movie that made you think for a split second that his cause was the right one? )
...
... (of course for that statement alone I might be considered something bad and dangerous to society)
In some countries you demonstrate against globalisation, or as a student you join the greens and make a stand in front of the train carrying nuclear waste.....
Then again... you log-in to a chatroom being angry because of a recent event (just watching everyday CNN, or local news) and say something stupid - eg whoever deserved whatever because they did that other thing the first place
Think of kids (teens)
Seriously what are the steps (what is the method) that puts you on that list ?
What if these lists get public and even the cashier in the supermarket gets the blinking red sign when she slides your creditcard ?
And what's more scary: do you ever get off that list if you get on it ? Or your FSCK'd for life ?
Being stared at, stripped at checkpoints and occasionally dragged into interrogation and have your door kicked in in the middle of the night ?
I'm not a politician, that's for sure, but it is reaching a point when I do not want to travel anywhere, I do not want to say anything to anyone online....
I am scared that what I might say can and will be used against me, my family, my kids
What's in my head? Honestly I would grab a bunch of good souls and move to an other planet and retry with a new model of society
I mentioned this story on ep5 my show if anyone cares.
http://hackermedia.net/uberleeto/
Hacker Media
What happens to you if someone else has a similar name? From this article on the ACLU's No Fly List lawsuit:
Or from this article from 2003:"This week 18 men named David Nelson, all residents of Oregon, confirmed they have been repeatedly delayed at airport counters and security checkpoints in the last year or so."
"Remember Ozzie and Harriet's son, David Nelson? "I got stopped at the John Wayne Airport" in Orange County, Calif., he said by phone from Los Angeles this week. "Two police officers knew who I was and tried to explain to the guy behind the security desk. It didn't faze him at all." Even as another officer was saying he had once met David's mother, Harriet, David was being instructed to remove his shoes, he says. "I asked, 'Does the guy on the list have a middle name of Ozzie?' He said, 'It just says David Nelson.' "
According to the terrorist's interpretation of islamic law it is their duty to attack the US and all other non islamic states. They believe they are instructed to convert or kill all non islamic people. Those are your choices, join islam or die. This is not an rare interpretation of islamic law.
There have been many "terrorists" throughout the ages. These Islamic fundamentalists aren't the first ones. So are you saying that USA should just carry out imperialism and attempt to take over huge chunks of the world just because of this problem?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I was a nielsen "family" a couple of years post-college (~1988) for sweeps. Probably skewed the ratings by working at home and coding all night long while watching Discovery and CNN.
:-) :-( "You watched the same news shows as a known terrorist! Come out for preventive deprogramming before we have to drag you out!" 1/2 :-)
A friend was a Nielsen family (wired) for a year, also a SW engineer. Realize that Nielsen probably also misses out on a fair number of the working poor - but I agree their samples can be pretty issue, especially for "niche" shows. They probably try to match nationwide demographics with their sample, but in things they don't ask about or level on it's probably significantly off.
The whole diary thing was a problem from the start, but with the first remote controls, then the explosion of channels (and other video sources) it got far worse. And, as you say, people have trouble remembering what they were watching something on, or write in things they wanted to watch or shows they want to "reward", or leave off things they "shouldn't" have watched. For example, I imagine far fewer admit to watch Friday-night Skinemax movies than actually watch them - especially the teenagers.
I wonder when Nielsen will start feeding data to the Matrix....
SEISINT has a spam connection.....as well as one to the NCIC.....lookup their corp docs, look where they came from, do some googleing and you will see all the neat stuff.
Yeah, and the assistant director of the FBI testified before Congress that Carnivore was only used to monitor suspected criminals. That was three months after Special Agent Irwin K. Summerville showed up at my door with a copy of an email I'd sent to my father, in which I called Janet Reno "the domestic enemy I swore an oath to defend the Constitution against."
Maybe they changed their policy. You know, because the FBI cares about privacy. Honestly.
How on earth is that insightful?? Muslim extremists want to be left alone.
Bullshit. They want to have the wealth of a modern country but without adapting their culture to something even slightly resembling a modern one. They want nuclear technology and, at the same time, a situation where half their population is locked up in houses or under burkas. One problem: it just isn't possible. By definition, things can't change and still be the same. Muslim extremists are idiots; plain and simple. And, not surprisingly, idiots of all types get used and played by politicans for power. You don't honestly think Arafat would EVER put on one of the bomb-vests he blows up teenage kids with, do you?
They don't want Americans forcing the American(tm) way of life down their throats. They don't want to kill anyone, they just feel they have to to survive.
I've never try to force my way of life on anyone. Apart from a true, long-term military occupation, I don't know if that's even possible. The simple fact is that the world copies us... JUST as we copy things from the rest of the world. It's just the way things are. And as far as I'm concerned, tough shit for the muslims who want their society to be the way it was thousands of years ago while they wave their AK-47s in the air.
You want to end terrorism? Get the US to act like a normal country.
Like a normal country? How about a normal muslim country? When's the last time you heard Pakistan do of something altruistic? Why is it we don't expect Iran or Saudi Arabia to help out if there's an earthquake in Turkey or other need for humanitarian assistance?
The problem is the United States is expected to do the impossible. We're supposed to take BOTH sides on EVERY issue. We're supposed to look out for ourselves and every third-world shithole as well. It's no wonder we're hated when we are held to that kind of standard. Let me assure you, you should FEAR the day the United States acts like a "normal" country, because most countries are purely self-serving. As it turns out, we're only partially self-serving.
-Grym