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GAO Studies U.S. Government Data Mining
securitas writes "Total Information Awareness is alive and thriving. eWEEK's Caron Carlson reports on a new General Accounting Office study that says TIA-style data mining programs are rampant in federal agencies with 199 projects at 52 of 128 agencies. The Defense Intelligence Agency/DoD is the single largest user of these data mining projects (eg. Verity K2 Enterprise). The story was first reported by Reuters' Andy Sullivan (ZDNet UK mirror) and the NYT's Robert Pear, who wrote that at least 122 projects used personally identifying information like names, e-mail addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers. The 'actual numbers are likely to be much higher' because the report excludes classified projects. Wired News' Kim Zetter writes that, in addition to government databases, federal agencies mine private databases of credit rating agencies, bank account numbers, student loan applications, etc. This week the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) released a report with privacy guidelines for data mining technology (PDF) development and use. Guidelines include data anonymization, government data access authorization and audit trails. Cynthia (Cindy) Webb's 'Total Information Dilemma' at the Washington Post is an excellent survey of media coverage of TIA, MATRIX and the GAO report 'Data Mining: Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses' (mirror, both in PDF format). More at GCN, GovExec and the Guardian/AP."
I live in Canada. Where only coporations do that sorta thing. NO Radioshak employee #1293 you do not need my address name and first born to sell me this 2$ gizmo
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
datamine!
Actually, "total information", if done correctly, is better than the traditional methods. Or you would prefer to be prosecuted and tried based on partial information?
Congrats! You're the last people on earth who trusts the Bush administration.
I figure that the government is so bad at effeciently using information anyway this doesn't matter. I don't know how this is a big deal compared to corporate data mining. Government is at least motivated by "serving the people" (yeah yeah Iknow that is nto always true) where corporate uses of data are motivated by serving shareholders interests (At least most of the time- *cough*Enron*cough*).
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
This is why I'm working on a master's degree in data mining. Better to be on the inside. I for one welcome the chance to be your data mining overlord! Buahahaha!
Oh my dear lord, they're going to figure out that I buy computer books AND read _College Roomies from Hell_. And you know what that means!
/. Yeah.
Or maybe they'll be convinced I'm a terrorist because I read CNN *and*