Government Adds Consumer Databases To Mining Queries

mrraven writes "According to an article in the Washington Post the government is increasingly using consumer databases for surveillance purposes. " From the article: "It is difficult to pinpoint the number of such contracts because many of them are classified, experts said. At the federal level, 52 government agencies had launched, or planned to begin, at least 199 data-mining projects as far back as 2004, according to a Government Accountability Office study."

Comments

From the functional specification

[Tackhead]

"It was terribly dangerous to use cash when you were in any public place and not a member of a loyalty program. The smallest thing could give you away. A falafel here, an unconscious visit to a halal butcher, a habit of not drinking, anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to have insufficient data on your credit card record, was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Amspeak: feedcrime"

- G. Orwell, Functional Specification: A Consumer Data Mining Model for Homeland Security

The damndest part is that I drink like a fish, and the only problem I have with pork is my Homeresque refusal to believe that things as wonderful as bacon, ham, and sausage can all come from the same, magical animal.

Unfortunately, I live next to a really good butcher's shop, and have no need of a loyalty-card based chain grocery stores. Guess I gotta get out there and start buying Lee Greenwood albums on my credit card or something.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Umbral Blot]

Yes but we expect companies to be greedy and to try to get away with as much as they can. On the other hand the government is supposed to represent the people and respect our rights. A company is created by a few people for their benefit, but the government is created by all the people, and it should be run to the benefit of everyone, not just the power-hungry and the wealthy.

Democracy...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Yes but we expect companies to be greedy and to try to get away with as much as they can. On the other hand the government is supposed to represent the people and respect our rights. A company is created by a few people for their benefit, but the government is created by all the people, and it should be run to the benefit of everyone, not just the power-hungry and the wealthy.

<rant>
Theoretically, in a democracy, the government is elected by the people. Unfortunately the selection of candidates available to be elected is usually controlled by a smal clique of wealthy people since it has become so expensive to run for office that no normal person can afford it without sellign his/her soul to these special interest groups. So in effect it is they who are create the government, not the people. Sometimes I get the feeling that the only thing that keeps democracy from being a totally unworkable system of government is the fact that the pack of weasels that make up the government are usually to busy the stabbing each other in the back to concentrate fully on their great design which seems to be to bring about the total collapse of human civilization as we know it. That and the fact that once in a while.... uhmmm.... make that once in a loooooooong while the people grow a spine, get off their ass and remind their 'elected representitives' that governments should never forget to fear their electorate.
</rant>