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."

Comments

Haha

[EinarH]

In the American USA the Gulag comes to you!

This is unbelievable...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're trying to say the bush administration is ignoring our civil rights in an ill-defined attempt to find bad guys, not finding them, trampling on the rights of everyone else.

Further, you seem to imply that the Bush administration is trying everything it can to deflect criticism from a vietname-like Iraq situation where we seem to have adopted the worst methods of the guy we said we were liberating the Iraqi people from?

Finally, you seem to say that they are in the pockets of large money interests and could care less about the impact of their money grubbing on the average citizen, and in fact are so rich and isolated from the average person that they think we're all stupid and sheep to be taken to slaughter when it fits their self-serving agenda?

Is that what you're trying to say? I find that unbelievable!

morons study robbIE's pateNTdead PostBlock devise

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Bush Admin Right On

[Mikkeles]

'Bush administration officials ARE responsible for the objectionable actions at Abu Gharib and ARE taking action against those that committed them.'

So you mean that the Bush administration officials are taking action against themselves as they are responsible?

Re:To give the tin foil hat view of the whole thin

[cheezedawg]

Actually, the saddest thing is that you and the parent poster appear to actually believe the crap that you are saying.

In your honor, I think I will double my contribution to Bush/Cheney '04 this month.

Re:URL spam

[Tackhead]

> Just tell me which link to click so I can RTFA.

Naw, it's just a duplicate of a "Slashback" article :)