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Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System
Parallax Blue writes "The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) that collects and analyzes personal information on US citizens. Relevant data 'can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.' The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns."
which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns
If by aborted you mean "renamed, swept under the rug and kept secret this time", yes, it has been "aborted".
Granted, data mining can dig a lot of interesting info out of big databases. But to me, there are two big problems with these type of programs:
1. Guilt by association: When they are doing "linkage analysis" using your phone records etc, how many people will be swept up in the "terrorist" net because they visit the same library as a "terrorist", or got called by accident, or shop at the same Wallmart?
2. Mandate drift: We all know that now it is "the terrorists", soon it will be "the terrorists, the child abusers, the drug dealers, the guys who hit little old ladies, ...". But with the sorts of data mining they are doing, they could just as easily pick out groups of probable (insert political affiliation here). How would you like the FBI showing up at your door because some data mining program thinks that you are probably going to protest a visit to your hometown by the president?
http://infowars.net/articles/march2007/080307TIA.h tm
The part I really love, is their logo. A giant eye of Horus with beams coming out of it encompassing the Earth.
Is it me or does anyone else find that just the slightest bit odd?
I wish I could say that this was an exclusively American phenomenon, but it seems to be becoming more widespread as the years go by. Now, in some cases, acronymisation has given us some useful new words; RADAR, LASER, etc. But most of the time acronyms are rather irritating buzzwords thrown about to sell something.
Very, very irritatingly, instead of referring to acronyms by saying the letters, people try to say "the word" that the acronym is trying to spell out. For acronyms that have been designed for this, like NATO or of course ADVISE, this is simple. For others, it's just stupid. Case in point, a friend of mine was in an interview and was asked did he know "sequel"(SQL). He said he'd never heard of it, because he hadn't. He learned about "ess-que-el"(SQL), and honestly had no idea that people tried to turn the acronym into a "word" of sorts.
Personally, I detest acronyms. If you dislike writing something out all the time, use a macro. If you need to say something, please don't use some ridiculous string of consonants as a word. It's insulting to your audience.
May the Maths Be with you!
We've got something similar to this, it's called:
Assimilating,Reasoning,
Statistical,
Enhancement,
Highlighting,
Online,
Linkage and
Encryption
Luckily no-one cared about our version as we've already got CCTV everywhere.
Welcome to the surveillance society. Come on in, just don't say anything that might result in your arrest. Things like: 'I'm not too fond of our current administration, I may vote for someone different next time,' are a definite no-no. Just stay on-message, never have anything to hide and you will be fine!
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
Did you ever forget to report that extra income you made mawing lawns in that summer, well you hid money from Uncle Sam and you probably used it to fun al-Qaeda which makes you a terrorist.
Did you ever think bad thoughts about the president? Well are definetly a terrorist.
Did you ever use encryption? Only pedophiles and terrorists use encryption so you are probably a terrorist.
Taking all this into consideration, we (the DHS) are offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel. You'll be scheduled on the next flight to Egypt on our luxurious private jets. You'll be viziting old prisons and other historical sites where you'll get to take part in exciting age-old interrogation by torture performances to learn local culture and expand your horizons. Oh and...you'll be the one being interrogated, oh and... it's not a performance. Kthxbi
Welcome to our 'democracy'.
You cannot control a democratic country by force but you can easily do it with fear and lies. Here is the algorithm:
--Fuck up a country algorithm:--
Input: Country founded on freedom, democracy, individual privacy
Output: Complete government control, 0 rights, 0 privacy
1. Make the people afraid. Could be anything, terrorists, communists, mexicans, chinese, witches etc.
2. Tell them that you can make the fear go away if they just willingly relinquish a little bit of their rights and freedoms.
3. Repeat 3 until no more rights and freedoms remain
4. Done.
>>Most people get over the ideological technology crap after a certain age.
i love this stentence..
as a college student i get something similar where they say "oh you need some 'real world' perspective".
apparently "ideology" stands for having a soul, while "real world perspective" stands for selling it down the river for a quick buck.
i dont know but im really considering remaining poor simply to retain some modicum of morality... maybe start a business building real wood furniture (even major vendors are using particle board now adays)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
For having so much dead during the blitztkrieg of the german during 1940 and then surrendering when there was no hope of counter attack ? Coward for resisting the foe and making "terrorist" act on german troup and collaborator ? Coward for saying "No" to bush when he attacked a country which had no tie to 9/11 under false pretense of WMD ? Remmemebr the massive citizen protest in those "coward" countries ? Please define coward. Those act took a lot more civic responsabilities than msot of the reaction I saw on the west side of the atlantic against the Patriot act or the war in irak.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The question that should be asked about any new piece of anti-terrorism legislation or any anti-terrorism program is simple. If this program was in place before September 11, would it have stopped the catastrophe or made it less serious (e.g. the planes still being hijacked but the world trade centers not actually being hit or collapsing)?
If the answer to this question is NO then the question must be asked, is it worth giving up our civil liberties for a program or law that would not have stopped the terrorists in the first place. And the answer to that should be a resounding NO.
Unfortunately as long as we have politicians who are more willing to listen to a man named after a plant than after the people who voted for them in the first place, we will continue to see anti-terrorism programs and legislation that erode our civil liberties without even doing anything that would have actually had an effect on the September 11 hijackers in the first place.
I would say "thank god I don't live in America" but given that our prime minister will do anything Bush says and then some, we too are seeing all sorts of nasty laws that we don't need and that do nothing to benefit our country or stop terrorism. Thankfully there is an election coming up later this year or so and I can go and do my bit to vote the bastard Howard and his party out of office (I just hope more people follow suit)
This is no different from a supermarket loyalty scheme, except that you can't opt out.
The sooner Homeland Security start offering discount points and a frequent flyer program the better - to reward loyal citizens - otherwise it's just a rip-off.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
What I don't get about the slashdot community is how articles such as this one lead to pointless, angry rambling, while stories on similarly worrisome developments in foreign countries (think videotaping violence in France, banning of Nazi memorabilia, ...) are usually met with a load of hateful comments on the inferiority of the countries in question. Just take the "America is the freest of all" postings. They could fill books. Most of you people here are from America, so why don't you actually try to take some action against what is wrong in /your/ country? I like America a lot, probably much more so than a lot of people in Europe and other parts of the world do. I just want to point out that it is attitudes such as these that lead to a negative opinion about the US in the first place. Opinion changes quickly, though. I do not believe that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the transatlantic friendship. Just realize that your state is not /inherently/ the best one, but that it takes effort for it to serve as a role-model.
but in reality to get their oil.
Honestly -- lay off the Kool Aid. Take a look at the amount spent on the Iraq war sometime. It's a vast sum; easily enough to have just bought Saddam's cooperation (and let's face it, he was desperate for friends anyway) and all the oil under Iraq.
If you're going to come up with conspiracy theories, at least make them plausible. The "OMG it's blood for oil BLOOD FOR OIL" thing just doesn't fly. If oil had been the goal, it could have just been purchased. It's not like the U.S. has a ethical problem with funding repressive dictators when it suits us.
I'm not really justifying the war per se, but you're going to have to look a little harder if you want to find its root causes. As usual, it's not something that can be rendered down to a three-word slogan. I think in large part, it had to do with the American populace wanting their government to kick the living shit out of some brown-skinned somebody's (and the government only too happy to oblige -- war being a far easier condition to manage than peace), and when the whole thing in Afghanistan didn't look like it was going to go anywhere satisfying in a hurry, Iraq was a convenient target for our collective spleen-venting: it was big, flat, filled with people we either didn't like or didn't care about, and we had good maps from the last time we'd taken a stroll through. Kind of a no-brainer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's sickening how often we can reference Orwell nowadays, but that is where we've landed ourselves. Speaking of Orwell, how has history viewed Stalin?
People are going to say "well, if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about". As if people have the right to judge me, of course. And that's the problem: who's doing the judging? Just what is "wrong" and "right"? Yes, we know that something that hurts another person is definately wrong, I'm not debating those issues. What I'm debating is someone searching for evidence to support themselves, and using nothing but circumstantial evidence.
For instance, say it's a rape (this is hypothetical). They don't have DNA evidence, but you're a suspect. You didn't do it. Well, hey, look at that, didn't you use your credit card to rent a porno? Or sign up for a porn site? Or make a purchase at an adult novelty store? I guess you really are a pervert...
The thing about this is that yes, that above example has a remote chance of happening, but the fact of the matter is that IT DOES HAVE THAT CHANCE. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all. And furthermore, not only could the government use this to build a possible profile against anyone from potential terrorists to potential dissidents (we already consider anyone that calls out against a war or a policy "un-American"), but it could be used as marketing fodder. This brings us much, much closer to - even unofficially - government sanctioned products; think Budweiser can come out with Victory Beer? And if you think this is highly sceptical, remember who got that contract to clean up in Iraq.
It's getting to the point where everything about our lives will be indexed and viewable to anyone that wants to within any reason whatsoever. We are becoming a fascist government with just enough Democracy to fool people into thinking they're in charge. Something needs to be done. NOW.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".