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."

Comments

U.S. Democracy

[j35ter]

Ok, I gave up on the U.S. quite a while ago. If *that* is the freedom you were proclaiming for the last few decade, then let me move to the USSR...oh, you brought them *democracy*...damned! :)

As long as good (old) Europe is free(until you bring us democracy too;) I'll just stick to my side of the atlantic (and the channel).

But seriously, U.S. citizens, aware of their surroundings, must be pretty frustrated by these moves.

Solving the wrong probem

[finkployd]

Several of you have been asking "could this program have prevented 9/11?". No, absolutely not. Did we all forget that after 9/11 all of the intelligence agencies dug into their records and found all kinds of warning signs and other indicators that 9/11 was going to happen?

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but the point is they had the intel necessary to predict and prevent this, but it was lost in the noise. What they need is not more electronic noise to sift through (and electronic wild goose chases to go on) but better human intelligence. Grepping through all of the worlds internet traffic and phone records is not nearly as useful as having a single agent embedded with a terrorist group or even paying a couple of informers in the "extremist Muslim" community.

One can reasonably argue that flooding the TLA agencies with this data will make their jobs harder and the overall counter terrorism situation worse. What it will accomplish however is pumping mullions of dollars into the private contractors, while allowing the intelligence agencies to justify raising their budgets and hiring more people to run this program. Which do you think is the real goal?

This is not about catching terrorists OR spying on Americans in an effort to turn us into a 1984 police state. It's about money, plain and simple.

Finkployd

Newspeak

[InsertCleverUsername]

You gotta love the Orwellian genius of our darling public servants. Think I'll pen a new law for Congress and the Senate to consider: the Love America And Freedom act. The text of the bill demands immediate impeachment and war crimes trials for the Bush administration. If you disagree with the bill, obviously you hate America and Freedom.