FBI Data Mining Students' Financial Aid Records

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday September 1, 2006 @05:42AM from the they-have-nothing-better-to-do dept.

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."

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Let me get this straight? by LoTechDave · 2006-09-01 06:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

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????