Slashdot Mirror
Senate Wants Database Dragnet
Doc Ruby writes "Wired reports that the "Senate could pass a bill as early as Wednesday evening that would let government counter-terrorist investigators instantly query a massive system of interconnected commercial and government databases that hold billions of records on Americans".
I've resisted wearing my tinfoil hat, now I'm wearing one, and putting one around all my personal information as well.
would let government counter-terrorist investigators instantly query a massive system of interconnected commercial and government databases that hold billions of records on Americans
OMG! They gave the government access to google!
The Senate will likely have its final vote on the bill, sponsored by Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), Wednesday night.
As I said before, don't trust any of the major parties to safeguard your privacy. This may, however, close the lack of information sharing between the agencies leading up to 9/11 that people bitched about.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Isn't it a little late to be reporting this? How are we supposed to Slashdot Congress at this late hour?
Many have trouble accurately querying databases within the same company. If these government agencies have the brain power (internal or contracted) to pull this off then they can have my information.
Michalangelo Progr
"Cor! What about a citizen's right to privacy, flatfoot!"
"Congress and the Justice Department have given us our mandate. Your with us or your against us, ma'am."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I hear that they are going to save money by hosting the entire database in a couple of GMail accounts.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Oh wait, they have to find some "October surprise" dirt on the challenger before the November election!
Now it makes sense.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
"A lot of (task force members) were very uncomfortable about data sharing," Farber said. "But all of us at the end felt confident that if the recommendations were followed, it was as good as it was going to get relative to privacy protections."
As good as it's going to get is exactly how good again?
I'm pretty certain there are millions of records of personnal information on us foreigners in those many many databases, too. Nice to see how highly we're regarded by the current US Administration :( Especially when we have no say in how these informations can be (mis)handled.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
"To prevent abuses of the system, the Markle task force recommended anonymized technology, graduated levels of permission-based access and automated auditing software constantly hunting for abuses."
Who is going to audit the auditing software? Who gets to assign permissions? How can this be anonymized? Why are these just recommendations?
"The proposed network would not look for patterns in data warehouses to attempt to detect terrorist activities, Dempsey said. Instead, an investigator would start with a name and the system would try to see what information is known about that person."
Ok, so it's not a "dragnet," but a "dossier net" that just keeps a file on everybody synthesized from government and commercial data. I fail to see how this could possibly detect someone using a false name, who does not want to be found and probably doesn't use credit cards.
"The next Mohammed Atta is not going to be found in commercial databases," Griffin said, referring to the tactical leader of the 9/11 attacks. "We are going to stop him running a red light somewhere, and we are going to run relationships associations with this guy and we are going to say, gee, you have things in common with guys on watch lists. That's how you are going to find the guy -- not because he has bad credit.""
Riiiight. How many people would match up to these arbitrary watch lists? How many more middle eastern folks are gonna be pulled over again and again and questioned again and again just because their activities look something similar to someone's idea of a potential terrorist?
Is it worth it?
The IRS lacks staff and adequate software and hardware. The BIA has totally hosed the accounting of the trust fund money. The Justice Department says that complying with a large FOIA data request would crash their servers. The current, tiny No Fly list contained the name of a prominent Senator. I should worry about this, why?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Ah, so it has struck US politicians that threats to the nation may (at least in theory) come from people who are not forreign nationals. Not that I envy those of you who live there, regardless of nationality. Freedom used to be cherished, and covernment control and distrust of own citisens in the former eastern block used to be scorned. Bring that point of view back! Your fears are scores for your enemies. _ /Bjorn.
I always said that Carnivore / Echelon / TIA probably resembles Google. That's what I would do if I were the government. Then it doesn't matter what format the information is in, web enable it, publish it and spider it. *poof* your database on everything law enforcement knows about everyone, without having to worry about integrating disparate systems across government (local and federal) agencies.
Didn't http://www.google-watch.org/ say that one of Google's top people came from the Department of Defense?
Of course we also need to figure out how to fill the database with so many fake "flags" that it becomes useless.
now where is that silver hat i usually wear?
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
What's wrong with this picture?
When all else fails, run.
Please explain why the effort to blend in--which would include convincing thousands if not millions of people to conform--is not better spent just making the government honest.
americans werent the problem
are they actually admitting that america too has carried out acts of terrorism?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
When signing up for loyalty card with grocers and drugstores use fake names...
Ted Nugent
Harry S Truman
John Cocktosen
If a company isinists on an SSN give them this... #078-05-1120
It's a specimen number from the Eisenhower era. Works most of the time. Happy evasions!
Now the dangerous likes of Ted Kennedy and Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens won't be able to do anything!
You have total freedom in one hand. You've got security in the other hand. Which do you choose? I'd choose freedom.
Let's decide if this is a good thing.
Q:Whom is this database going to be accessible by?
A: Government counter-terrorist investigators.
Q: Who are these government counter-terrorist investigators exactly? Can there simply be someone who works for the government, or do they have to have some kind of clearance?
Q: What kind of information will they have access to? Will they be able to pull up my voting history? (Washingtonians, check out RCW 29A.08.720) Will they be able to go as far as to see which classes I took in a public school?
When we choose security over freedom, we're giving up our right to privacy. There is nothing simpler than that, in my opinion.
And wasn't it JFK who said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?
What part of
"Article [IV.]
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. "
don't they understand? You already can, with a warrant. The only reason a government would want these powers with this little cause is to spy on its citizens. They've already got sneak-and-peek warrants!
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
"The next Mohammed Atta is not going to be found in commercial databases," Griffin said, referring to the tactical leader of the 9/11 attacks. "We are going to stop him running a red light somewhere, and we are going to run relationships associations with this guy and we are going to say, gee, you have things in common with guys on watch lists. That's how you are going to find the guy -- not because he has bad credit.""
Anyone else reminded of the overreaction to the Columbine High School shootings, where anyone who fit a "goth" or "geek" profile, or had anything judged remotely in common with Harris and Klebold, got the dangerous criminal treatment for months afterward?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
sponsored by Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut)
I never understand why Lieberman has people cut off the bottom part of the R when they show his political affiliation.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Because it only takes one mistake. And everybody makes mistakes.
Suppose the guy you're looking for has a bank account under a fake name - all you know is the bank account number, and nothing at all about the holder. Suppose further that you have access to all TCP/IP headers on the planet.
Hey - look at that. The bank's logs show that our guy logged on to the bank from aa.bb.cc.dd. It was a kiosk in the middle of an airport.
And someone accessed Slashdot from IP address aa.bb.cc.dd only 30 seconds later.
And the security cameras at the airport show only one person used that kiosk for the entire hour.
So we can now look at his Slashdot user info and posting history we can learn a lot more about him than we knew previously. Maybe enough to guess his real identity.
The saying "every criminal leaves something at the crime scene, and every criminal takes something home from the crime scene" applies to more than just criminals, and to more than just crime scenes. Information may not want to be free, but it sure wants to leak.
The people running this one can arrest you, take all your stuff and deport you to a country where you can be tortured.
Other than that nothing much else is different.
Why not just use the Do-Not-Call registry? Sure...sign up for something with the government that is too good to be true.
In other news, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax can do this already.
Saying that Lieberman is a democrat is like, well, saying that Zell Miller is a democrat...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
sept 11th was executed with box cutters
box cutters people
no amount of technological edge can defeat a few determined a**holes and a simple idea
we can spend 10 trillion on all sorts of technological doodads to fight terror
i just wonder what the next simple box cutters-level work around exploit will be
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do we need a database to figure this stuff out? I think the Four horsemen of the apocalypse just want a database so it can be abused. Just wait until the IRS gets it's hooks into it or vice versa. Just wait until it gets hacked and information gets leaked. We all know how good Congress is at securing (sic) their top secret campaign strategies.
This is a waste of money that will lead to massive abuse, false positives, and turn the government (literally) into Big Brother. It's 1984 about 20 years late.
To extend the system to its logical conclusion: cameras and RFID sensors will be installed everywhere then everyone will be injected with RFID tags. This will allow anyone to be found instantly (or at least the last known location) for their own safety of course. This would be a great plot line for those whacko's that made the "Left Behind" series. I wonder if they could get Mr. T to say, "Don't even think of implanting that thing in me fool!"
Actually, I am not too worried since this project will be farmed out to a loser company packed with overpaid consultants that can never pull all the data together. After investing 20 trillion dollars the project will be scrapped only after hundreds of innocent 80 year old ladies have had their doors kicked in by the Department of Homeland security and been hauled off to secret FBI detention centers (accidentally of course). Oh the fun that awaits the American citizen after this system gets funding approved.
Those who are willing to sacrifice sound quality for harddrive space deserve neither.
You don't value your privacy, then you lose it. Half of America voted for the pinheads making this a reality, you have no one to blame but yourselves.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A search warrant should be required to perform any such search. At least give judicial oversight to the use of this information.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This is a good quote to hear from time to time as it helps to remind you, as you say, that there is no point in fearing that which you do not control.
As far as the big database dragnet goes, I'm not sure that it would have helped 9/11 - policing those whose visas had expired would have likely done more good. This database dragnet might do more good in stopping things like the Oklahoma City bombing where a couple of rednecks (who didn't farm) bought enough chemicals and fuel to run a farm and made a big bomb out of them.
I also think that the Senate saying "let it be done" and it actually being something that could be done in a meaningful way are two different things.
Please excuse me while I get my bid ready to go. I think that I'll be asking for (insert Dr. Evil voice) 1 trillion dollars...
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Even as far as private standards go, alot of that data was gathered in a really slimey way. Doubt me? Remember Ad.Doubleclick.net? They were/?are? basically "cyberstalking" internet users across websites. In the face of uproar, their "solution" was to grant users who didn't like [being spied upon] the option of opting out. {opt-in would have been the only ethical way of doing their thing}.
So now you're telling me that some members of Congress want to commendeer that data, rather than having it destroyed, and banning the practice? It smacks of a police state. Why would any decent human pursue data trolling? Remember J Edgar Hoover.
Such entities should be compelled to destroy their data, and desist from further cyberstalking.
If the present attempt/trend [of government net widening] succeeds, we may live to see a second american revolution.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
You have to write a wicked long join.
Yeah, it's the path of every government: Scare everyone into obedience, offer 'protection', kill anyone who gets in the way, then crash, blame it on anarchy, and start over. Ours is showing the final signs as it's now recklessly throwing out laws, imprisoning anyone in sight, going on killing sprees it can't cover up, etc. Saddam and Hitler didn't get away with it; I doubt the dumbasses in our office can.
e nt_memo.html
On an interesting note, the government is anticipating a 9/11ish terrorist attack to take place just around - oh gee - election time http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/12/law_enforcem
The reps sure called that one, didn't they? Bush said something really bad would happen unless he's reelected. I guess the administration is following through on that promise.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!