Slashdot Mirror
FBI Data Mining Students' Financial Aid Records
crumley writes "The U.S. Department of Education has been running a program that data mines student financial aid records for the FBI. The program, now five years old, is known as Project Strike Back. It trolls for names of suspected terrorists through the Education Department's database of information, which is derived from students who fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The discovery of this program by Northwestern University journalism student Laura McGann has added fuel to the debate about the Education Department's proposal to start a new database tracking the academic progress of all students."
Not that I think this program is good, but they only collected 1000 records for analysis. According to the article there are over 14 *million* student loans each year. I would say that this is a very small fraction of the student population.
Windows Admin Tools
If this means I no longer have to submit my 12 transcripts for every educational and career application, then I'm all for it. Then again, if I were named Ahmed Bin Laden, then I might feel differently about it. (Oh, and I for one, welcome our Dept. of Education Overlords!)
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
It trolls for names
Argh. The editing at slashdot plumbs new depths of ineptitude.
It should of course be:
It trawls for names.
Those students receiving federal loans/grants who fail to get good grades will be charged higher rates for loans and fewer grants.
;-)
It should not be tracking us.
This is unacceptable. The lack of self-control exhibited by this administration and its departments over the last six years is unbelievable. If enough of this junk happens, it is actually going to cause social instability. What a clusterf* modern government has become.
My little site.
All these surveillence programs would be acceptable if we could trust the government not to abuse them. Not to expose our personal info to ID fraud (and worse). Not to hand the data to their corporate cronies. Not to spy on political enemies for counterstrategy or blackmail. Regardless of which party, faction or person is in power, publicly or covertly.
Not just "trust" as in "the president seems like a decent person", but Reagan's promise to "trust but verify". Real Congressional oversight. Real punishment for violators. Real institutional processes for keeping data within the scope of only the required transaction. Real trustworthy government processes that make "security" both use and protect data.
--
make install -not war
I'm in the list. :(
After the security breach at the FSA, and now this, I'm seriously beginning to regret going to college in this country...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
That's a great idea. It will make it a lot easier in the future to track down people who took subversive classes, classes from subversive professors, or classes with other subversives.
Of course, that does make it a little tricky today for students to figure out who will be a subversive in twenty or thirty years. I know that back when I was in University (yes, it was during Vietnam) I would have bet that the people on the wrong side of a Senate subcommittee would have been the ones throwing Molotov cocktails. I would have been wrong, though. They're the ones conducting the Inquisition now.
Well, nothing in life is certain.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Basically, the government is looking for alleged terrorists who committed loan fraud so that the government legitimately nab them. Then the government will interrogate them about the terrorism stuff that the alleged terrorists are involved in. Since tons of loans are done to college students using the FAFSA process, there is an easily accessable (to the government) database that they can use. As a law-abiding student, I really have no qualms with this unless the government decides to start going after law-abiding students.
Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
{
return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
}
They are mining data from the "Free Application for Federal Student Aid". Isn't this a federal agency/program? I do NOT approve of what they are doing in any fashion, but why is anyone surprised that a federal agency (FBI) is given access to federal documents (FAFSA)?
Who would have thought it?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I was under the impression that the FBI/CIA/Homeland Security wanted to track the flow of money back to terrorists. And they are looking at the financial records of students who aren't financially supported i.e the ones who have applied for a loan????
So anyone opposed to this is saying the federal government should not check to make sure they aren't funding the education of suspected terrorists. I am in favor of the program.
...but how would Slashdot investigate terrorism? Isn't some law enforcement agency going to have to gather data and sift through it to determine who is using the system to disguise terrorist activities (and I don't just mean bomb making or kidnapping conspiracies either, funding is a large part of the issue)? If terrorists are known to be using the FAFSA process to launder funds to aid terrorist activities domestically or abroad, doesn't it make sense to further investigate these records?
Like I said, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here. I don't like unfettered access to data for the purposes of mining and developing patterns because that can lead to McCarthyesque witch hunts. However, if the data is meaningful and is gathered with the sole purpose of looking for terrorists or drug laundering schemes then I'm all for it. It;s a matter of abuse and I'm tired of every journalist crying wolf when they discover evidence of something like this. If there's proof of abuse, investigate it, write about it. If you're just fear-mongering and trying to become the next Woodward and Bernstein, then stop. Woodward and Bernstein checked their facts and exposed the former, they did not write hack pieces trying to expose theoretical conspiracies.
To me the concept is exactly the same as a cop chasing a criminal who has run into a department store. The officer runs in and starts looking at every face until he finds the criminal. Do we get upset at the officer and get up in his face about looking at us while he was trying to find the criminal?
It took me 6 years to get my BA. Part of it was laziness on may part, but if the government was searching through my records, maybe they would find that I could have graduated sooner if there were more sections of the goddamn classes I was trying to register for. Then again, that's what I get for going to a state school. Shoulda gone private and not had to rely on the government subsidy. Oh well. Can't be hypocritical there...
As another poster pointed out, if you take money from the government, you should be held to account more than the general public for the use of the funds.
In Soviet Russia, financial aid forms submit you! Oh, wait..
...for members of Congress. Seriously, if you run for public office, you should be forced to release all military, financial, tax, criminal, and educational records to the public.
The general public, though, should have its privacy respected unless there is a court order because of the suspicion of a crime.
AIU, data mining is about finding 'interesting' stuff inside a data set. For instance, data mining would be the DoE going through their DB to see if the same name/SSN would crop up at multiple schools. Or an attempt to correlate school results (grades) with the amount of money spent on a student.
Not the FBI submitting some names and asking 'do you have a record for mr. X'.
how poor a lot of students really are and how hard paying for college can be....but then again, who am I kidding. If Americans could get a cheap education the number of people enlisting in the Army would plummet.
Monstar L
I don't know about the higher rates part, but denying or reducing loans and grants to students who don't perform academically seems pretty fair to me - I'd say the straight A student deserves a better chance at the money than the guy with a C minus average spending his loan money on pr0n and cheap beer... /lived with such a specimen in college...
They gave the FAFSA people a list of names, and FAFSA gave them info that was on their application. The poster needs to learn what data mining is.
Sometimes I doubt your committment to SparkleMotion!
I don't have a problem with the data mining of FAFSA stuff if it helps to fight the War on Terror.
As an aside, if you believe this war is a sham, and you believe that there is no global terrorist threat, then pay closer attention the next time Iranian "president" (A-mad-jihad or whatever his name is) goes on television and advocates the annihilation of a country, namely Israel. And that's only one piece of the puzzle. There has been global terrorism since at least the 1970's, and it's all connected to the same sources. Open oyur eyes and you'll realize that this war is very real and it's a grave threat to all people who want to live their lives in peace.
But I do see a problem with this data mining program: It means that people who do not fill out FAFSA forms will be excluded from the data mining process. And it's not as if the terrorists lack the funds to pay tuition in order to work around this data mining program.
I suggest that a simpler program should be put into effect that essentially ties all schools, colleges, and universities, into a database that houses very basic information about each student who enters the country with an educational visa in order to study. When they apply for the visa, detailed information about them would go into this database. Schools would submit information about every student who attends, basically just saying how many units they're enrolled in and whatnot. Very basic information. When the information about foreign students goes into the database, it would be matched against the other information about them in that database. The purpose of the whole thing would be to keep track of all foreign students -- who is enrolled where, and whether this person is actually attending class. That is the gist of it, because this particular program is supposed to find people who enter the country with an education visa in order to study, but actually go on to do other activities, like participate in terrorism.
...but how would Slashdot investigate terrorism?
- A requestor (government official, etc.) submits a request for a query on a specific database.
- The group gathering this data must be completely unbiased, preferably a group of people outsourced from another country
- This outside group is allowed to modify the requestors query as to remove any prejudice from it.
- Each person submitting their data must first be given an opt out choice as to be exluded from the data mining.
- Each record must be accumulated, counted, and summarized by 2 people, of different races, in order to assure impartiality
- Once a final list of supspected guilty records is created, any person on that list that is frequently stereotyped should also be removed.
- The final list of guilty records should be written in permanent ink and returned to the requestor, in order to ensure the records are not modified.
I can see the negative points already made and I do share the same sentiments. There is a huge potential for abuse and given the shifty practices of any administration over the years, not just the current ones, this does not bode well for Joe College Student.
On the other hand, much of this info is already available and tracked by credit agencies and listed in your individual credit report. That information is also readily available to whomever wants it and can pay for it. The government is not necessarily doing anything out of the ordinary. It just depends on what info they are collecting and how they are going to use it.
Now, do not forget that back in the previous administration, there were several Chinese national students rounded up for spy-like operations, visas were revoked and they were deported. Those students got here on incentives and grants presented to them by the U.S. so that thier students could come here to study. Great idea! I'm happy to see the world coming here to learn. We have some of the best research facilities on the planet in this country and we should be sharing our knowledge. However, when those we trust to share the knowledge wish to use it against us, that is detrimental. Check out photos of China's Navy and Air Force and compare it to not only the U.S. aresenal but also Russian, British and French aresenals and you will see why. Here is just a small sampling of what China has been doing. China's Secret War Those current operations have direct links to the information those students who were deported were stealing and sending home. When those students returned to China after thier deportation, they were treated as heros.
They are just one example. Even our "friends" are trying to gleam information about sensitive programs so they can copy the designs and have the same capabilities without the controls or paying for the rights to the technology that has been developed by scientists in other countris like the U.S., Russia and European nations.
Tracking this info will allow the government to help identify potential threats and watch them for signs of espionage. However, given past performances of our government, it will go past the line of reason and turn normal, law abiding college students into criminals.
So our government's response to 9/11 should have been to not do anything except perhaps apologize to the Islamic community for placing our skyscrapers in the paths of the airliners they hijacked?
What exactly should the government be doing? Waiting patiently for the next attack?
You're confusing two things- the demands of justice in response to such an attack, and what a logical response to such an attack should be.
Justice is a compelling motive for a strong reaction, but that reaction should then be just itself. Removing every American's privacy rights is unjust. This is what is not sinking into people's skulls.
What would a logical response to the attack be, if you were wanting to minimize loss of American life? Well it certainly wouldn't be this.
Since asthma killed more people in 2001 than died in 9/11, I would suggest that we should lose as many or fewer of our rights as Americans, than we do in our reaction to asthma.
A lot of people object when I make this argument, but other than ad hominem attacks nobody ever refutes it or explains why it's wrong.
I fly all the time, and I live in one of the blue states most likely to be affected by terrorism, but I do not worry about terrorism at all because I am not stupid. In fact it's clearly the people least likely to be affected by terrorism who are clamoring for our rights to be taken away because of it.
I realize that asthma is not as politically exploitable as terrorism, and the American press fixates on it whenever the JonBenet story dies down, but the alarmism of the press is one reason why Americans are incapable of correctly assessing risk.
So this explains why the request demographic and ethnic questions when applying for financial aid. :-)
According to the article, law enforcement has open access to this information at any time without giving valid reasons. If these people are under suspicion for valid reasons, why isn't it possible for our government to obtain search warrants to look at the data?
The cop chasing someone into a department store has a reasonable suspicion that someone in the department store has committed a crime. In situtations where a crime is currently being committed or someone is in immediate danger, allowances are made to protect people from harm. It is likely that the FBI had a reason to look at these students specifically, however no one outside the bureau knows that reason. There was no judicial oversight.
IANAL, but it would seem to me that since this information was transferred from a different federal department that had no relation to law enforcement it should have required some sort of warrant. In your analogy , the cop is looking at information that is already publicly available (i.e. your face). Your financial history is definitely not supposed to be public information.
There should be some sort of process where a person outside of the executive branch (like a judge) oversees requests for this information. It is routine for other types of crime, why is terrorism an exception? Although in this case it may seem justified on the surface, if a precedent like this is established it may lead to very harsh consequences. There are restrictions on the executive branch for a reason.
The constitution limits the authority of government. It does not make exceptions for wars, which is intentional. A ruling administration should simply not be allowed to do many of the things this one has done under any circumstances. Self control should have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Way to go, slashdot editors. As has been pointed out, the FBI already had suspect names and did a search for them. They didn't request all student aid applications to be sent to them for rifling through as they see fit.
And we all know how well that is working!
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Let's see. Suppose I search a database for a specific name, is that mining?
If so, then the local cops are data mining DMV records every time they run a license plate.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The Government has no right to search or seize anything without a warrant.
There are no gray areas here. Search & seizure is not legal without a warrant. Period. No warrant without probable cause. Period. Dot. Stop.
I refuse to accept a police/surveillance state as a "cure" for terrorism.
What, is your argument that you'd rather give up your freedoms to be safe?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Between your work at NeXT and Apple, and your earlier work in the financial sector, people have suggested that you have made an awful lot of money. But not everyone has such resources at their disposal. Sometimes people who do wish to get ahead must borrow from the resources of others. It is often the case that a good education requires one to take out a load, or otherwise accept a government-subsidized education.
I know most libertarians don't like to admit it, but such educational subsidization programs are often beneficial to everybody. They grant the individual greater power, not only to persue a more innovative or productive career, but also to better understand the world in which they live. A better understanding of one's government, for instance, allows one to realize its negative effects and wastes.
More money put into the education sector provides jobs for academics. As you should know, it is these academics, especially in the scientific and engineering fields, who often contribute greatly to the advances of industry.
Highly educated workers often have better jobs, and as such are better able to fend for themselves. This not only lessens the need for social assistance, but it also often leads to less crime. When you have fewer criminals, a decrease in police spending is often the result. That funding decrease can be translated into a tax decrease, which can often translate into greater consumer spending or saving. As any sensible libertarian knows, such increases often benefit the economy, and hence society, as a whole.
Many libertarians either fail to realize, or choose not to realize, how the government funding of education can often lead to better "compliance" with their libertarian ideals. It's the old "teach a man to fish" saying, on a national or worldwide scale.
...then they DAMN WELL BETTER keep track of where they disperse it. I for one certainly do NOT want my money finding its way into grants, loans, etc going to students, charities, business or any other entitiy that is involved in the committing of acts of violence against our allies, with the ultimate stated goal of destroying our way of life. Furthermore, there is something rather sick about giving money, education, etc. to someone so they can use it all to kill you or destroy your society.
My problem isn't at all with the data-mining of the student financing program--by problem is with how it was conducted. How awful is it that the gov't doesn't think it is important enough to inform its citizens when it wishes to do something that may affect your civil liberties? It should be stated in bold at the top of student finance applications that come or all of the information submitted is subject to possible FBI search. There should be strict regulations on sharing this information with anyone outside the department responsible for the programme and the authorities, and severe punishment for those goverment officials wo violate such regulations. However the FBI is quite justified in wanting such an investigative tool. The key to all of this is INFORMED CONSENT.
As to the records of student progress/transcripts/whatever I think that is overstepping things a bit, mostly becasue I don't see any real benefit except to be nosy (I dunno, maybe if it is a course on flying or a nuclear physics degree? still...). If the FBI finds something suspicious in the student financing records then a warrant could perhaps be justified.
I think that as is the case with a lot of Homeland Security initiatives is that the stated intentions are noble (real intentions?...not so sure) but the execution ranges from stupid to dangerous. Airport security for example...the watchlist is a disaster and ineffective and very bad at dealing with false entries--it is totally counter to "informed consent" becasue passengers have never been given any idea how authorities decide who must be on the list, nor at what point your name is screened against the list. Additionally it takes a "shoot first as questions later" approach by immediately blocking/deporting/holding passengers found on that list without sufficient cause--and just being on the list is far from sufficient cause to ruin someone's travel plans much less expel them from the country because the list is so inaccurate and clumsy. The name "Yousef Islam" is on the list, and when poor "Yusuf Islam" tried to fly to DC a whole plane of passengers was diverted to Bangor and Yusuf was apprehended and immediately deported. Yousef allegedly offered financial support to the terrorist group Hamas so I can see why he is on record, but Yusuf has won international pease awards and is a leader in legitimate, well-respected charitable efforts. Plus, he has a pretty successful career in music performing as Cat Stevens.
This is the real world and you cannot expect the government to be like those three monkeys and turn a blind eye to suspicious activity, though I do agree with you that the US gov't is losing self-control (as does happen in all large institutions left unchecked). Perhaps it may seem difficult to imagine the gov't being disciplined enough to properly inform its citizens and following due procedure at this point, but we in western society have nobody to blame but ourselves. I find it distasteful when peole bitch and moan about how nasty gov't is then reveal that they no next to nothing about how gov't works and rarely or never vote. The US gov't is like a neglected feral cat--its owner once cherished it but slowly stopped bothering to feed it and change its litterbox, and when the cat started catching critters to feed itself and crapping in the houseplants the owner chastised it and threw it outside to fend for itself. Now the gov't is a big ugly stray cat that is suspicious of all people and does the most base things in its own self interest...all because we decided it wasn't worth the bother to care about it and keep it properly fed, cleaned and trained.
And, while you're at it, please indicate your time parameters. After all, everyone in the US of A is required to be a student at one time or another.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
I agree with the parent.
Why do you hate America so much?
I think some people missed the joke.
Terrorists don't use their real names when they enter the country, just like they don't bring stuff to airports that they know we'll check for.
All they're really searching for are people with arab names.
"Trawl" might still be the more appropriate term in this context. When fishing, "trolling" is a method to entice your prey to come to your hook. "Trawling" scrapes the bottom & upturns everything, and then you filter out the items you want to keep & toss the rest back, possibly the worse for wear.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
The databases with citizen information in the government's possession are proportional to the number, size and scope of our government's agencies.
Frankly, it serves us right to have the government mining all this information about us; we let them accumulate it in the first place. When failures happen in the institutions we expect to be protecting our health and safety, we demand better interagency communication. Well, here it is.
Each new aspect of our lives that we grant entitlement status to -- which we think should be secured and managed by the public sector for every citizen -- creates a new information sink about those citizens. You can't dump that kind of information into the government and then expect there to be an impenetrable wall protecting it *from* the government. It's not going to happen, no matter how much indignation and idealism we hurl at the issue.
Just wait 'til we have universal health care; anytime someone needs treatment for a chemical burn, they can probably expect a knock on their door asking for an explanation of how the injury happened. But hey, we're clamoring for the House & Senate to ride in on their white horses & fix health care for us, so in our collective subconscious, we must want things that way.
If you want to firewall data like this from willy-nilly government sifting, find a way to move it outside the government. Clamor for a bill forcing agencies to contract out their data storage to organizations with strict charters and civilian privacy oversight. Better yet, clamor loudly for a bill giving all Americans the right to opt out of any government service or program that collects private data and stores it in a government-controlled warehouse, Social Security and Census Bureau included. Force private & non-profit alternatives to exist for most of these data-collecting agencies, and force the agencies to use third-party data warehouses for those services where direct private alternatives aren't possible. Ultimately though, if you want the benefit of public services, then there is some consequential loss of privacy, plain and simple.
None of what I suggest will happen in our lifetimes, of course, but privacy is already evolving into a commodity in its own right. As such, this will eventually affect the public sector to the extent that it is exposed to normal economic pressures.
Pi Ran Out
The DoE inquisition!
For an outsider the US looks a lot like the USSR did ten years ago. The KGB is even surpassed in US govts intrusion into the privacy of peoples lives. Its pretty funny how the US have become exactly what it hated the most about Soviet Its likely to continue into something much worse if people living in the US keep taking it happily in the rear. Perhaps they will wake up when the economy meets reality and the huge defecits starts to take its toll.
Lets hope it will stop at the next election.
HTTP/1.1 400
"Q And the poverty problem?
PRESIDENT BUSH: And the poverty problem -- listen, this nation is committed to dealing with poverty. First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill. And so it's important to understand -- people are susceptible to the requirement by these extremists, but I refuse to put a -- put killers into a demographic category based upon income. After all, a lot of the top al Qaeda people were comfortable middle-class citizens. And so one of the things you've got to do is to make sure we distinguish between hate and poverty."
The FBI must have shit a brick when they hit MY name and seen the paperwork that came up! Unless they were only trolling foreign students, in which case I wouldn't show up.
Besides, all they had to do was ask my PO where I was.
Stupid program - you'd have to be one dumb terrorist to use your real name on a FAFSA application if you know the Feds know your real name.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Unfortunately, it seems to me that the privatization of our government is what is causing the problem in the first place; this tends to undermine arguments that privatization of data storage and management being the solution to the problem. The most major change which has caused corruption over the last ten to twenty years has been the increased amount of money available to politicians, much of which is coming from large corporations you seem to think would create solutions. The market doesn't seem to be the solution in this case... Better government is necessary, not government through private companies...
My little site.
We're probably going to have to agree to disagree. Yes, I think by and large, large corporations can as bad as lawyers (99% give the rest a bad name). But despite all the things people feel like they get away with, even large corperations are ultimately the more accountable, in that they don't enjoy the Sovereign Immunity that government agencies do.
I also can't help but see a tension between some of your statements: You cast privatization as a bad thing, but also think politicians have too much money. The problem with that is that politicians do much more damage with the public money they manipulate and control than they can ever do with the comparative pittance they accumulate in campaign contributions. Case in point: The Social Security "IOU" fund.
Another problem with these arguments is that privatization isn't exclusively a government contract scenario where politicians can gerrymander the vendor selection process and get kickbacks in return. Privatization can be as simple as allowing competition where the government had monopolies in the past (as I wish they'd done with SSRI). After all, if they don't control your retirement savings, they can't double & triple mortgage it can they?
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, remember that I specifically used the phrase "with civilian privacy oversight" in my comments about third party data storage. That's a key element to the types of solutions I propose; you need an EFF-type organization sitting between your data and any request to access it, gov't initiated or otherwise.
Pi Ran Out
Its pretty funny how the US have become exactly what it hated the most about Soviet
Well, there were certainly plenty of things to hate about the soviets, but right up there near the top were the TENS OF MILLIONS OF THEIR OWN CITIZENS they killed.
Let me know when dubya's total gets near that point.
There would be nothing to mine...
Generally, I think corporations have too much influence upon the world around them and interfere with creation of a more efficient citizenry through their relentless drive to sell things.
Social Security worked fine until there was pressure to raid it. When you mention it, you should also remember that it was created to attempt to alleviate the worst market failure in history.
Missed the 'civilian privacy oversight'; that makes quite a bit of sense. However, oversight is another word for 'government' here, and agencies like the EFF and ACLU are losing their power to accumulate information slowly but surely. The root of the problem is that many of the organizations that emerged from the latter half of the twentieth century are actually too large for people to effectively be in control of. Even well-meaning CEO's do things every day they have no ability to be proud of, as does someone in charge of the most powerful corporation in the world, the US Government.
This doesn't let leadership off the hook, it means it has to get more effective. And it's not. Because people don't understand in the proper proportion what is required for good government....
What fascinates me about the current state of the U.S. is that we've got a thousand times as many people as we did during the time of the founding fathers, and not even ten percent the intelligence in our leadership. I can't name a single national leader I have anywhere near as much respect for as I do for either Franklin or Jefferson. I think we have fostered an environment wherein excellent leaders are incapable of lasting long enough to accomplish anything.
My little site.
You are in error: 2+2=5
please recalibrate your equipment accordingly.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation having access to records for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
...but is it art?
I agree that getting an A is great, but why do people always seem to focus on getting a C as bad? Last time I checked, C was meant to be the average grade. B and A were meant to be above average, D and F below.
Using these death rates to validate anything against terrorism is naive - even if you ignore the emotional contribution (which actually is very significant).
In your comparison, you fail to account for at least two major issues associated with terrorism:
- the amount of casualties involved (along with the localization) create an enormous stress on rescue services within the immediate community. Are the hospitals in your area able to accommodate a huge influx of emergency cases at an unpredictable time?
- the open-endedness of such attacks. How do rescue services know that it's over? Do neighboring rescue services assist or brace for an attack within their own community? Do they know what type of treatment to provide?
Additionally, I'd expect that many of the people who died of asthma, knew of their condition and were taught how to properly react to an attack. Terrorists usually don't offer warnings and even act with intent to cause more harm, if possible. Does asthma do that?Actually, I have a more appropriate way of comparing the two subjects...
Asthma is a problem that causes panic on an personal level:
- one cell in your body stops working? No big deal, happens all the time.
- a large part of an entire organ stops working? The individual can stop functioning.
While terrorism causes panic on on a community level:
- one person in your jurisdiction stops working? No big deal, happens all the time.
- a large part of an entire district stops working? The government can stop functioning.
To treat asthma, a patient needs to establish monitoring and lifestyle restrictions. To treat terrorism, a community needs to do the same. The level and focus/direction should be agreed to by both parties (patient/doctor, public/government), determined by the risk posed. Unfortunately, the comparison fails here because the safeguards and histories that exist allow patients to trust their doctors infinitely more than the public can trust their government.
The problem currently witnessed is less about the monitoring, than the secrecy and unknown scope. Any patient would be distressed if they knew that their doctor was monitoring them and still wouldn't tell them anything. Likewise, any patient would be distressed if they independently found out that their ENT was extensively monitoring their reproductive system.
Sort of appropriate: the concern about terrorism should be shared by the public at large (which includes the government), not the individual. I should point out that you should be worried, but only within the limit of that shared public concern - save the rest of your worry for asthma, or some other personal medical conditions.
This is not my sig.
This is such a non-issue. What is more scary is that part of every credit report is running your name/address against the Fed's list of "known/suspected" terrorists. And that's not just a random sampling of FAFSA applicants, it's everyone, on every report. Which of course, includes every student loan anyone ever requests.
Credit Reporting is so much more pernicious than this that I'm amazed people don't launch into general revolt.
What kind of terrorist is going to apply for FEDERAl aid to get an education? I mean educated terrorists would be more interested in help from other countries or from something like the Bin Laden Funds For Needy Terroists...
Look, were any of the 911 hijackers on any way shape or form of assistance, subsidy, federal loans, etc.
No. Noth that I'm aware of.
All had plenty of Bin Laden Bucks. IIRC the excess was transferred back before the attack.
Clue to dumbass who thought of this idea;
Federal Financial Aid is barely enough to finance your education (at least back when I was in college).
This is nothing more than an invasive Big Brother abuse of power.
Who will guard the guards?
Yes. The constitution offers no exceptions in cases where law enforcement wants to search records from an institution that happens to be part of the same government.
You all should realize you can try to fish for a ceartian type of fish, but you are never gauronteed what you will pull up, it only illegal to keep fish that are not in season/ within catch limits / a ceartain size
Don't you realize that we are all living the the united country of wobegone?
Also, a student that has had his financal assistance cut off might become a terrorist 8-))
haha, i didn't actually read that crap! reading is gay.
Submitting info to the Dept of Edu is ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY!
If you don't want the FBI looking through your information, then don't apply for federal aid!
Libertas in infinitum
Since asthma killed more people in 2001 than died in 9/11, I would suggest that we should lose as many or fewer of our rights as Americans, than we do in our reaction to asthma.
A lot of people object when I make this argument, but other than ad hominem attacks nobody ever refutes it or explains why it's wrong.
Ok, I'll bite. It's wrong because it's a non-sequitur. The reason why our reaction to asthma does not infringe our civil liberties and privacy to any great extent is because there are no mechanisms available to protect people from asthma which would infringe on our civil liberties and our privacy. It's not because someone drew a line in the sand and said, "Sorry, we could protect ourselves from asthma if we tapped people's phone lines, but that would be unamerican, so we don't do it." Don't get me wrong -- I don't approve of the current administration's handling of this situation, particularly with regard to civil liberties and privacy. But, Ben Franklin notwithstanding, there has always been a trade-off between liberty and security. There has not been such a tradeoff, historically, between liberty and asthma-prevention.
I agree with your statement: "The root of the problem is that many of the organizations that emerged from the latter half of the twentieth century are actually too large for people to effectively be in control of."
The only effective strategy I see against this is to promote policies which facilitate more vigorous competition from smaller organizations and upstarts. Many of the factors that create oligopolies are artificial constraints rather than market forces. Economy of scale is one thing, and IMO it's good and right that this favors the larger organization. IP law run amok is quite another thing though, and here it seems our policy does anything but what it was created to. Fixing the system without damaging freedom of speech and of trade is a tough nut to crack though.
Pi Ran Out
"Pinko" is hardly fair: libertarianism is flat out wrong. Everyone knows that. Unbridled greed leads to unbridled corruption; you need only look at the past centuries of feudalism to see what happens when power is allowed to concentrate in one place. Might makes right is always wrong, be that economic or otherwise.
Second of all, calling him a brat serves no purpose. He may be one: but it's not your place to judge. Namecalling is beneath both of you.
Thirdly, everyone knows that state laws still provide countless examples of the entanglement of Church and State: most of the laws in the Deep South, for example, forbid nudity, forbid extra-maritial sex, or forbid sodomy, and do so only because of a deep flaws within the legal code which allow expression of religion.
Lastly, parents clearly aren't enough, because both of you grew up with parents, and neither of you learned to deport yourselves in public. The state needs to intervene enough to ensure that humans grow up better than both of you.
Lastly, stay on topic! Sheesh!!! Buncha jerks!!!