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FBI Data Mining For More Than Just Terrorists
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports that the FBI is using data mining programs to track more than just terrorists. The program's original focus was to identify potential terrorists, but additional patterns have been developed for identity theft rings, fraudulent housing transactions, Internet pharmacy fraud, automobile insurance fraud, and health-care-related fraud. From the article: 'In a statement, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the report [on the data mining] was four months late and raised more questions than it answered. The report "demonstrates just how dramatically the Bush administration has expanded the use of [data mining] technology, often in secret, to collect and sift through Americans' most sensitive personal information," he said. At the same time, the report provides an "important and all-too-rare ray of sunshine on the department's data mining activities," Leahy said. It would give Congress a way to conduct "meaningful oversight" he said.'"
Nothing to see here. This story was on the front page less than 24 hours ago3 24211
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/11/2
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
"Surprise, surprise surprise!"
I mean seriously, did anyone think otherwise? Let's see... You've got at your disposal a giant database of every person in the country, their financial activities, their social security numbers, their purchases, their personal tastes, their locations, their income, their interests, their criminal records, their political leanings, their emails, IMs, personal communications, and most importantly their RELATIONSHIPS-- who they call, who their family is, where they travel, etc.
Amazon and lastfm use this kind of thing to figure what kind of music you're likely to like and/or what items you're gonna be most interested in. Do you really think with all this tasty information the government isn't going to use it for ALL KINDS of purposes?
They'll be able to do searches using probability and relationships to identify all kinds of commonalities between "undesirables"... who knows what it might be that puts you on the wrong list... maybe you share the same taste in "music PLUS shoes size PLUS income PLUS you leave too close to a mosque" and BAM, you light up as a 97% potential political dissident. Oh, and look, you're having an affair too. How convenient.
This shit is scary. I'm not surprised they're using this information for domestic crimes (which of course they're not allowed to do, not that it could possibly be admissible. How could a court accept evidence from a nationally secretive/illegal spying program? That is, unless they're getting tips from anonymous gov't sources that never show up in a courtroom...).
I AM worried about what else they're using it for (breaking up political adversaries, busting government bids, economic manipulations, blackmail, etc.) that we won't find out about for 50 years, if at all.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Who wants to bet that political dissident groups are being monitored through this program? I mean, it kind of goes without saying, since their primary domestic target is environmental activists. The FBI and the US government in general has a long history of using ostensibly crime-focused programs to infiltrate and neutralize political enemies (see the American Indian Movement [and Leonard Peltier], Martin Luther King Jr., United Slaves, the Black Panthers [and Mark Clark, Fred Hampton, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Alex Rackley, H Rap Brown, Geronimo Pratt], the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Liberation Army, groups struggling for Puerto Rican independence, Students for a Democratic Society, Earth First! [and Judi Bari], various militia groups, even church peace groups and smaller political parties like the various socialists. Not to mention nonaligned activists like individual environmentalists who've been set up or entrapped in recent years.
For those who don't know, COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) was an FBI initiative targeting American citizens engaged in "objectionable" political activity. Instead of arresting and prosecuting criminals, this secret and illegal program sought to neutralize targets by:
- creating a culture of fear and paranoia (psychological warfare) through whispering campaigns, surveillance, illegal search, seizure and entry;
- infiltration, provocation and entrapment;
- legal harassment (such as repeatedly arresting leaders of targeted organizations for minor infractions, keeping them behind bars while they awaited a hearing or scrambled to make bail; also including falsified show trials such as the "tennis court murders", where Pratt was convicted of murders that were committed while he was, according the FBI's own surveillance records, 400 miles away);
- violence and murder (notably the murder of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark).
While the COINTELPRO moniker has been disbanded, its methods extend into FBI practices to this day.
And if you're a female stupid enough to wear a skirt, guys should be able to look right up it, yes? Because it is easy? Even if the female in question has something tucked up there she'd rather guys not see? Wait, you think she has some kind of right to privacy? Why? What if she's got some shoplifted stuff in there? Doesn't that give us the right to look up everybody's skirt?
Invasion of privacy is the crossing of socially defined boundaries, not just hardened boundaries like those that incorporate walls, encryption, or locks. Those hardening implementations are just the same boundary, with less trust. In other words, if I don't encrypt my hard drive, I'm not inviting you onto it. The boundary is still there. If I do encrypt the hard drive, I'm still not inviting you onto it, but I've taken the step that if you are such an ass-choad that you go there anyway, I've made it more difficult. This is because some people have made it somewhat prudent to drop the trust thing that goes along with social boundaries.
In some small towns, people don't find it necessary to lock doors - cars, houses - because they know that their neighbors won't cross the social boundary. In LA, on the other hand, they know the neighbors will cross it, and so trust is sundered, and locks go in and are used. This is not a good thing and robbery of an unlocked home is not a consequence of stupidity on the part of the homeowner, it is a consequence of social retardation on the part of the thief.
When you say it is OK for the feds to jump onto people's information that they in no way intended to share with anyone, you are explicitly sanctioning the lack of a social boundary that protects those things you do not intend to share. You might as well lie down in the gutter right now and commence staring up the ladies skirts. After all, if they didn't want you to look, they'd have worn pants, right?
Privacy, liberty, honor, grace - look into all these things. They actually have good, solid reasons to exist, and it is a terrible thing when the government - or anyone else - erodes them. When it is done as a matter of course, it is not only terrible, it is despicable.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.