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."

Comments

Re:1000 Records is a really small number

[Chosen Reject]

I just hope that while they are at it they can go ahead and renew my FAFSA for this year.

We should be tracking our government.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

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.

Re:We should be tracking our government.

[popeye44]

yea.. nothing like the last administration confiscating FBI files on pretty much anyone they didn't agree with. I'm sorry but it's the GOVT period that needs to be stopped.. not this administration or the last or the next. It's OUR Fuckin goverment and its' past time they learned who exactly it does belong to.

I Don't Understand

[lbmouse]

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)?

Let me get this straight?

[LoTechDave]

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????

Re:1000 Records is a really small number

[Zinnian]

Sure 1000 is nothing, nothing that is until one of those happens to be you or me. It's that small first step that makes them think they can take a bit of a bigger one next time. All of this is done, of course, in the name of tracking the terrorists and keeping us safe.

Re:1000 Records is a really small number

[TopShelf]

From the article:

Mr. Miller said the Education Department had been asked to "run names of subjects already material to counterterrorism investigations" to look for evidence of student loan fraud or identity theft.

"No records of people other than those already under investigation were called for," he said. "This was not a sweeping program, in that it involved only a few hundred names. This is part of our mission, which is to take the leads we have and investigate them."

This wasn't trolling through student data at random, it was for specific names that were already part of an FBI investigation. That point is being entirely missed in the comments here. The FBI has a list of people they're investigating, and are asking the DoE to check if any of them are applying for financial aid anywhere. That sounds like basic police work to me. Perhaps it's newsworthy because it's surprising that two branches of the federal government can coordinate on anything.

Learn how to assess risk

[MillionthMonkey]

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.

Re:Why not require a warrant?

[Miaowara_Tomokato]

Why would you expect information about any loans stemming from your "Free Application for Federal Student Aid" to be kept secret from the government? If it concerns you that much, apply for only private loans - then they can only track you using your bank data and any secret programs you don't know about.