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Government Adds Consumer Databases To Mining Queries

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the next-up-grammar-school-records dept.

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."

8 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Uh Oh! by nog_lorp · · Score: 5, Funny

    I knew I shouldn't have answered the question "When is the last time you purchased weapons of mass destruction?" on that Safeway survey!

    1. Re:Uh Oh! by demachina · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It would be possible to use this kind of mining to catch someone buying a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, some plastic barrels, and diesel fuel. You might catch an Al Qaeda terrorist or a Tim McVeigh preparing a very large bomb, or you might net about a million farmers. Presumably your data mining would use other information sources to narrow the focus to Arab Muslims who are either terrorists or farmers. Of course when you do that you would let all the Tim McVeigh's out of your net. Maybe you can factor in Ryder truck rentals to get them back in the net, so the query is:

      Ammonium Nitrate && barrels && diesel && (Arab Muslim || Ryder truck rental)

      I don't know about anyone else, but I would really prefer the government stop spying on all Americans in a mostly futile effort to catch a relatively small number of Muslim extremists. I would prefer the government had focused on dismantling Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since they were actually responsible for 9/11 and are still mostly not held to account. I would have preferred they hadn't gone off on a tangent and off the deep end in Iraq and in spying in the U.S. For example it is insane to make everyone take off their shoes in airports, from now on, because one guy put some explosives in his shoes once and it didn't even work. People on airplanes will freak if they see someone try to light their shows now so I'm not very worried about this vector of attack. It was insane to create a concentration camp in Gitmo, and it is really insane to snatch up innocent people with Rendition, endorse the use of torture, and dismantle due process all of which have permanently tarnished the U.S. in the eyes of the world and made many Americans ashamed.

      I can probably live with the FBI focusing some attention on Arab Muslim men who are in this country on visa's of one and if they are doing things that are suspicious, get a FISA warrant and spy the hell out of them. FISA warrants are almost never denied and at least there would be some restraint on the spying. All the spying that is going on has NO restraints on it, and is ripe for and probably is being abused.

      Sure its possible another 9/11 plot slips through the cracks, but its a smaller price to pay than the one we are paying by turning the U.S. in to a police state, reviled by the rest of the world, and that is what we are getting. Even worse we are getting a police state that can make extensive use of computers and networks to create a police state that is more all knowing and all seeing than any in history. And it is a police state with nukes, lots and lots of nukes, and the most powerful military in world history(though it still can't control the streets of Baghdad).

      A new 9/11 plot might kill some people but the war in Iraq has killed far more people than 9/11 did and in a year or so it will have killed more Americans than 9/11 did, having passed the 2500 mark this week. A new 9/11 plot might cause a lot of economic damage like the first, but the war in Iraq is heading towards the half trillion dollar mark, we are spending more there every month than we spent during the height of Vietnam(adjusted for inflation) and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. American should have whacked Al Qaeda after 9/11, and then laughed in their face and said we aren't going to play your game, we are going to be an even better and freer country than before and do some things that would make a real difference in the world, and in the eyes of Muslims, like resolve the mess in Israel.

      All I'm saying is:

      Dear Government, Please stop being insane, Please stop spying on me, Please stop wasting all my tax dollars and borrowing my country in to a hole it will never get out of. Please stop making the rest of the world completely hate America and Americans. I like the rest of the world and I would like them to like me. The fewer people who hate America, the fewer people there are who will want to blow it up. Please FBI keep an eye on Ara

      --
      @de_machina
  2. Nothing to worry about by koreth · · Score: 4, Funny

    After all, I'm sure they're only scrutinizing people who are actually doing something wrong. It's the government! We can trust the government to do the right thing and not abuse its power. Unless it's the part of the government that gives money to poor people or sets school standards. That part of the government is run by a bunch of incompetent lunatics. But the part that secretly tabulates data about people, of course they're all good guys.

  3. From the functional specification by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "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.

  4. Re:What's the big deal? by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --

    Philosophy.
  5. Today terrorism, tommorrow ??? by QCompson · · Score: 5, Informative

    What is so frightening about the data that the NSA/FBI is gathering about U.S. citizens is that while they claim it will solely be used to look for terrorists today, next year they will be using it to look for drug dealers, then file-sharers, then political "radicals", etc.

    The Patriot Act was supposedly passed to help law enforcement in their fight against terrorism, but it didn't take long before it was being used in the "war on drugs". When the Patriot Act was renewed recently, they added a provision about methamphetamine.

    In Attorney General Gonzo's own words: Importantly, the legislation provides additional tools for protecting our mass transportation systems and seaports from attack; takes steps to combat the methamphetamine epidemic that is sweeping our country; and closes dangerous loopholes in our ability to prevent terrorist financing.

    It is scary how this was packaged up under the "terrorism-oogity-boogity-label". This may all seem a bit off-topic, but it demonstrates that the government is willing and able to lump other issues into the terrorism catch-all.

  6. Democracy... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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>

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  7. Admiral Poindexter seems to have gotten his way by golodh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Remember that admiral Poindexter with his Total Information Awareness (TIA) programme? It looks as if his ideas have been implemented from the first to the last. Links: http://www.p2pnet.net/issue03/page1.html and http://www.p2pnet.net/issue05/page1.html