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US Shuts Down Controversial Anti-Terror Database
coondoggie writes "The massive anti-terror database established by the US government has been criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens. Computerworld reports that as of September 17th, the database will be shut down. 'The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. service members and defense civilians all over the world.
Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database. The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. The Air Force developed TALON... in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way to gather data on possible terrorist threats. Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies.'"
(eom)
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
Why Sep 17th? Why not shut it down now?
Wow, maybe I can fly again now! I wonder if I'll still have to bring ID...
Didn't they claim they shut it down before?
I could swear this program has been "killed" twice, and by "killed" i mean the government's definition: proclaiming a project discontinued while continuing it under a new name. (note: definition also adopted by microsoft regarding the trusted computing project)
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And replaced by..?
You can't take the sky from me...
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The data will be archived, then a year or two down the road will resurface as some new system. Now that they've collected all this data, don't think for a second they will let it go quietly into the night.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Then turned on back again only when it is needed... It is not about privacy it is about running green. Using less power by turning off the database when you don't need it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The problem with these closed systems, any closed system really, is the inability to find and locate not only the errors, but the correct data either. The more erroneous data there is, the less likely one will find and retrieve the needed data. If anything, you get a "security through obfuscation" situation, but you're giving the security for the folk you need to target!
Keep your lists pruned and accurate. And the best method for this is with open and honest auditing in the public light. Not necessarily by the public themselves, but with public employees such as in the judicial system. Trained, skilled and non-biased eyes are always the best tools to not only perform oversight, but to keep this country or any country safe and secure.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Computerworld reports that as of September 17th, the database will be shut down.
You can trust me - I'm from the government. Would I lie to you?
On a more serious note, how in the world could anyone actually verify this?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
By "shutting it down" do they mean that they will simply stop adding new data to it? Or stop using it? Or will they locate every copy of every bit related to them and erase them? This would include all bits stored in backup tapes, offsite, etc.
In any case what happens to the data? Will this be magically "forgotten" Will all records that came from the database and got copied to other departments (e.g. FBI files) be deleted as well?
That's the trouble with data collection. Once it is collected it may never disappear.
And no-one will be charged with a crime, even though they used the program to break the law.
No-one will be prosecuted for any of it.
It will be buried, the backup tapes will sit on a dusty shelf, and seven years from now, someone else will blow the whistle on this program's replacement database, lather, rinse, repeat.
I'm sorry, but the summary only explains the acronym twice, when I require a minimum of 3 times before I can be certain of its meaning.
Can whomever applied the "slashdotliberalwhining" tag to this article, presumably a self-described conservative or libertarian, please explain how a government that engages in surveillance of provably nonviolent political activism is exactly "small"?
The cognitive dissonance here is just staggering.
I'll believe it when (a) an indpendent agency - not a government one, but someone like the ACLU - verifies that they watched the procedure of wiping the drives per DoD standards of data erasure, and (b) pigs fly. Even if they invite an independent auditor in to watch the erasing and decommissioning of the database, you know for a fact there's a second (or third, or fourth) copy out there, simply for redundancy and disaster recovery. And I really doubt that the Bush administration will allow anyone into their secret data lairs. This is more PR to get the monkey to shift shoulders for a while.
They didn't mention the database that is replaceing it....
The problem with these closed systems, any closed system really, is the inability to find and locate not only the errors, but the correct data either.
The real problem is that people are collecting the data in the first place. People have no idea how much information is being stored about them by companies like ChoicePoint and how that data is just a request away from anyone. This is collected without their knowledge, permission or benefit. It is always used against them. At the very least, vendors and service providers should have to disclose what they are collecting and who they sell it to. At the best, most of it would be against the law to collect. Technology has created new threats and new laws need to be made to counter these threats that economic advantage alone won't eliminate.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"where your eyes don't go a part of you is hovering. It's a nightmare that you'll never be discovering"
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Oatmeals like Tor!
How on earth does something like this get "Insightful" ? If it will get replaced, then you can just say "see, I told you so" despite apparently not being more secretive. If it doesn't, then you can say "well, they're more secretive." There's absolutely no way you can disprove such a statement.
"Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies.'"
Try to make a pro-war group, a "Conservative institute", or a movement for gun liberalisation, opposing unquotaed immigration, or against the teaching of evolution. Enjoy being photographed through your home windows, having false members and reporters infiltrate your group, and 'activist networks' collate information on your members and organisation in private databases.
A liberal government that did those things would never be sought to be stopped or protested against by the same individuals either - since the protests aren't against monitoring in general, just against monitoring of the specific targets that are peace groups and antiglobalisation protesters.
That would make the system 5 years old! Of course they don't have a problem getting rid of it. It's very likely been replaced with it that old! Have you heard of TIA? (run by the NSA)
All this sounds like to me is a consulting engagement to scrub the data, insert it into a new system and announce to the public that they are shutting down the system as a PR move.
And that's also the reason why they need to run it until September 17th. They probably had to oder and install new hardware to copy all the data over. Well, that and some extra time to come up with a new, even cooler retronym.
Anybody else remember the hoo-hah that came up regarding the bogus reporter that gained white house press access under "Talon News"?
Their chief correspondent, "Jeff Gannon", turned out later to be a complete fake (and a male prostitute at that). I find it interesting that the bogus news agency has a similar name to the overbearing government database.
I'll take off my tinfoil hat now and shut up.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Cialis, because you never know when the time you test your bomb at university will become the right time"
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I am a cynic, but could it be that we are supposed to forget 'til then that something like this existed and continue to be good citizens and vote 'em in again?
But most likely it's just going to be replaced by a less public version, so we don't question our leader's intentions.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"And TALON will be replaced by?"
The Moya Database.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
There's absolutely no way you can disprove such a statement.
That doesn't mean it's not true. Experience suggests it is.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'm sure Ms. Stewart was a big fan of non-violent political activism.
I don't care if you're non-violent or not, if you're communicating with the enemy, we (the American public as represented by our government) want to know why.
And we have every right to that knowledge.
What?
You can read the main message from Al-Qaeda here.
And Bush says we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here.
If THEY are here, WHERE are the troops?
This is tagged as slashdotliberalwhining? I thought limited government used to be a conservative ideal. Everything the current administation does isn't automatically "conservative" just because the President is a Republican.
-- dR.fuZZo
Allow us to simplify it for you. Regardless of what "news" you read or what the various levels of government tell you, if you don't assume you are being watched and tracked to one degree or another all the time, then you are an idiot.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
Wait, so the problem was that people who attended anti-war rallies found that they were in a database indicating that they were....at an anti-war rally!? The devil you say! So the DoD wants to keep track of who is at what rally? In what way does that infringe on civil rights anymore than video monitoring of street corners in Baltimore, for instance? Or red light cameras? Attending a rally is by definition not an act of someone desiring privacy.
Seriously, anyone who believes in vast government conspiracies has obviously never worked for the government or been around government employees. Or watched C-SPAN. Monitoring anti-war activists in order to sabotage their lives I just don't buy. Too complex. Kicking the door in to an old lady's apartment and hucking a flashbang at her because someone typed "Apartment B" instead of "Apartment D" on the warrant, that I believe. Bureaucracy isn't sneaky and pervasive like, well, like a sneaky and pervasive thing, it's more like a bull: big, dumb, and hard to stop once it get's going.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
While avocate strongly for the right to privacy, to complain that there are groups out there collecting information on people is the height of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
We are in the INFORMATION AGE. Your information is going to be collected whether you like it or not. What you should be agitating for is more responsible use of that information by the collectors and consumers and more education on what information being collected and how for the 'targets'.
What you should be agitating for is for companies and governments to stop basing their security/identification on now publicly avaliable information (Dates of Birth, SSN, "mother's madien name").
Don't waste your time on trying to 'control' what is being collected, the bad guys won't pay any heed and the good guys already have enough problems on their plate. Instead, spend your time on pushing for this information to be handled responsibly and INTELLIGENTLY, and not just as an afterthough.
Secret Threat and Local Liberal Interferer Observation Notice
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yawn
So that gives them what... 27 days to copy all of that data to another database? If they're going to shut down a database, why do they need to wait all that time? Just shut it down now. It's not like it needs a cooldown period or something. Delete it before some last-minute tool can get in there and mess with it.
And they said zombies weren't real!
I can't say you're wrong about that.
It's more secure.
I, for one, welcome our new corporate-governmental Orwellian database overlords.
technical writing / development
.... Soviet Russia seems better all the time. At least they're honest about stuff like this.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Or some such non-sequitur.
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
So... who did they sell the database to? :(
So any guesses on how long it will take for some report to surface that the hard disks or printouts from this were stolen or lost after the close it down?
Oh I know I'm going to be watched to some degree whether it be by government or private institutions. However, allow me to simply for you. Regardless of what "spin" you try to put on it, the comment was essentially meaningless, and as such, how can it be insightful? Its interesting how you add all that drivel about news I read and slip in that about the government besides me not having said anything about whether or not I actually believe that it will be replaced or not. But if you indeed really can't cope with someone saying something against a comment that you sympathize with, then you are an idiot.
No, it's not worth 3000 lives to live in a surveillance state.
... how many soldier's lives were lost and innocent Iraqi civilians murdered by shock and awe? I'm sure neither of them count, but it's a lot more than 3000.
Is it worth 10000 lives to live in a Fascist dictatorship?
When does it end? How much is 300 million people's freedom worth? Scratch that -- you've said, somewhere between 0 and 3000 lives, but not more than that, otherwise we'd need to wait for a second 9/11.
But
Another thing you do is lead the question -- "wouldn't affect you, probably". It always affects people. There isn't a surveilled citizen that hasn't had their life altered by monitoring. The people with the data _always_ find a way to put it to use you never intended or authorized, eventually. Don't forget the fact that the data is often wrong or misinterpreted, and we'll reap those consequences, too.
Personally, I'd rather live in a free state where I feared terrorists bombing symbols of their own exploitation (that I could easily avoid) than under a surveillance state, where I lived in constant fear of government reprisal, intimidation, mis-monitoring, and misinterpretation, no matter where I was.
I guess that's the difference between Bush supporters (trolls) and Bush haters (insightfuls).
Not exactly, I'd say experience suggests that it may be replaced by something that is supposed to be secretive but we find out about it anyways.
While avocate strongly for the right to privacy, to complain that there are groups out there collecting information on people is the height of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Oh please. This is, at best, a non-sequitor, at worst a strawman argument. This isn't about "putting the genie back in the bottle". This is about setting regulations and guidelines for how this data can be used. Canada has already passed laws to this effect, which seem to be working fairly well. The only reason the US doesn't do the same is a lack of political will ('course, things like corporate lobbyists don't help).
This story is tagged "slashdotliberalwhining".
Because to the fake "Conservative" fascists who support an unlimited government spying on us, tracking our every move, and leaving the info unprotected for anyone to use against us however they wish (if their campaign or other bribe is high enough), privacy and its 4th Amendment guarantee is for "liberals".
Because to those fake "Conservatives", the duly-elected Congress that got an 11.6 point majority vote margin last November shutting down that tyrannical spying operation is just "whining".
Fake "Conservatives" are exactly the slaves our founders fought to free this country from in our Revolution. There were plenty of British monarchy loyalists back then, and even enough of them left today to form their own "Loyalist Party" that is completely consistent with all the other idiocy we expect from fake "Conservatives". A party dedicated to conservativewhining, and to destroying the Consitution.
--
make install -not war
The most important sentence of the article is the last one: The department is working to develop a new reporting system to replace TALON, but in the interim, all information concerning force protection threats will go to the FBI's Guardian reporting system. Its only being shut down because they are working on a "better" system to track citizens!
If they weren't planning on using it for anything, why do they need the information?
Are you suggesting that because some people are put on the list legitimately (ignoring whether or not she was legitimately put on the list), no one is put on the list illegitimately? If not, I've got to tell you, that's sure what it sounds like you're saying.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
No, you are thinking of the Total Information Awareness program, which was very different. That (and its associated programs) were/are datamining everybody's credit reports, public records, etc to find "terrorist patterns".
This program is unrelated. It's not datamining anything. All this is is a centralized database of threats to DoD installations and personnel. Sure, it has its potential for abuse, but its a very different animal from TIA, and confusing the two does't help anyone.
but we find out about it anyways.
Sometimes. Eventually. After the damage was done.
The only reason they would come out and say, "Ohh you all were right and we are going to end this project." Is because they must have something better. Otherwise they would defend it, and tell us we needed it.. also why wait 2 months? Because the new system must be in testing..
May I ask who is being held accountable for implementing this citizen tracking system? Wait, let me guess.. nobody as usual, right?
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Which brings up an interesting philosophical question: Should data about you necessarily belong to you? What if the data is about more than one party? The useful example here is a transaction between a consumer and a company. Would you require consent of both parties before this data could be transferred or sold? What about third party observations of events? There are some clear lines, and some very fuzzy ones here.
... to maximize the publicity.
We are going into an election cycle and everyone is going to need to trot out their sound-bytes on this subject. I have no doubt this move will be spun as a blow for freedom, a blow against the war on terror, an example of liberal spinelessness in the pursuit of justice, an example of the American people calling the govt out and winning, and on and on and on and on...
On another note, how likely is it that the military is simply giving up an effective tool? My bet is that this particular system has either been surpassed by another, was shown to be completely ineffective in the first place, or has been thrown to the wolves in exchange for concessions of another type.
Regards.
To make sure all the data is backed up and they have a new name for the program, duh.
Donald Rumsfeld uses a USB 1.0 pendrive.
plasmacutter, I think it goes something like this:
"We're "shutting down" the database (fingers crossed behind our backs) but that doesn't mean we're going to delete all that data. See, we're just turning off the Microsoft Access front end that the administrative assistant in D-ring made back in June. We don't have anybody available who can actually "delete" any data, so we'll just leave it alone, but we promise (both hands behind their backs now) that we won't really use it."
I'm really pretty shocked that with all that's gone on, that no media outlet has reported on the fact that the latest wire-tapping law that was passed the last day before congress went on vacation was signed by Bush, but...he actually added a signing statement that says, uh, he really doesn't have to follow the law because hey, he's the president and terrorists are trying to kill us after all..
So, even though the law that was passed was EXACTLY the law the President wanted, because it was actually written by Al Gonzales and his assistants, he STILL doesn't have to obey it because... HEY LOOK OVER THERE! A TERRORIST!! BEHIND THAT TREE!1!!
The most disturbing part of this whole mess is that the media, the Democrats, nobody will say shit about this unprecedented power grab because at heart they are all authoritarians who want to forget all about this "Constitution" nonsense so MONEY CAN BE MADE.
People can say that this is nothing new, that when the Civil War was on Abe Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, and Roosevelt limited rights during WWII, but that's just a crock. In both those cases, Lincoln included, the presidents went to congress and got their permission to limit freedoms and for a limited amount of time. Bush is going solo on this one and since the Global War on Islamonaziliberalism is The Forever War, we'll never again have to bother with civil liberties, rights or privacy. Freedom has become obsolete in just the term of one president.
Amazing.
Fortunately, I've got faith in the belief in liberty held by many of the bright folks here at Slashdot, and I'm expecting a civil uprising against the surveillance culture to come in the form of hackers and other whitehat miscreants who will fight to put fat monkey wrenches into the efforts of the guys over at NSA. Hell, I'm not surprised if there are still a few patriots over in the NSA who might be building some backdoors into this machinery. Well, one can hope.
The fight isn't over, but it's important for us to start recognizing the enemy. And guess what: he's not wearing a towel on his head.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"It is always used against them."
Please support this statement or admit you're lying.
People throw around words like "never" and "always" are not insightful, and are usually full of shit.
You're a perfect example.
..or the thousands of private databases across this world tracking everything from purchases made with Visa to issuance of a visa? In effect, we did...we all 'clicked through' something long ago, but for some reason, the government, on a mission to find the terrorists among us, are not permitted?
To think this is the only one...to think the government is the only agent-of-study...it's all kinda naive, isn't it?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
USA==USSR
Yeah. When (if) you're old and retired and the information is declassified.
Are absolutely all documents regarding WW2 declassified yet?
Stop the brainwash
I wish I had mod points.
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Do the chicken-hawks have large TALONs?
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
...a ton of used SAN equipment is about to hit eBay. Sweeeet.
There's no way in hell to stop people from gathering public information. For SURE new laws won't. After all, it's alredy illegal to abuse the data in the first place. Another new law would be just about as effective as gun crime laws, drug laws, etc.- they just make what was already illegal illegal again, woohoo!
Data will go into databases because data is available and valuable. The only way forward that makes sense is not to try to stop it, but instead to make it less valuable. If you can't use someone's SSN and address to steal their identity, watch as that information becomes much less interesting to would-be thieves. Technology has reduced the cost of holding and searching and storing data, which reveals that mostly our personal security in the past has been protected by the fact that it was expensive to parse and mostly unavailable to thieves that didn't have access to your mailbox.
We need to invent better security, not try to throw out everything that's valuable about technology.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
God? Is that you?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Yes and what that means is that the programs which collect the information either base themselves outside of Canada or they aren't publizied in Canada. If you honestly think that those laws actually mean that NO ONE has the indicated information collected, you are fooling yourself.
The US had laws about spying on its own citizens. How well did that turn out?
The US made promises that the SSN would ONLY be used in relation to Social Security matters, that it wouldn't be used as a universal "ID" tag. How well did that turn out?
You _are_ trying to put the genie back in the bottle when you attempt to paint 'passing another law' as the solution.
What used to be publicly available but extremely tedious to collect has become child's play to obtain. People slept too long under the impression that "security through obscurity" was a horrible way to lock down a computer system but perfectly ok to use to lock down their private life. It's too late to complain about it being out there. Maybe there should have been stronger safeguards. Maybe it shouldn't have been public. It DOES NOT MATTER, it's already out there.
The information brokers today are people who operate above the board, but do you honestly think that if you made their business illegal there wouldn't be groups out there ready to play the part of the Mob in our little play of modern Prohibition? People are already out there selling pre-made kits for identity theft, CC#s, and other such black market 'information.
What sort of fun could be had if we all just pretended the information wasn't out there and we were 'safe' to continue to use the old methods of doing things because it was 'illegal' to use the information that way.
No, you won't have to worry about your supermarket knowing what you buy and sending you coupons. No, you won't have to worry about web sites saying "Looking for pills? Try BRANDX!" Instead you'll be wondering why your credit rating is in the shitter and find out that it's because you've been the target of 10 different identity theft scams. You'll find out that your credit card has been canceled because the bank has had enough of dealing with fradulent charges and simply cuts you off the first time you report one. Instead you'll come home to badly worded email threating to forward your boss every posting you've ever made online unless you start paying a 'fee' every month to keep the info buried. Or come home to a squad of SWAT police ready to knock down your door because someone put their face on an ID with your information on it before strolling into a bank and shooting up the place.
What should be done is to minimize the amount of damage that can be done with that information. You aren't going to stem the flow, so stop trying to put up dams and instead work on routing the water around the places you care about. Start teaching people how to keep their public life and their private life seperate. Start teaching banks that no, it's not ok to just accept every CC application you receive and dump the costs of fraud on the consumer and the merchant. Start teaching companies, that they shouldn't be using SSN as a replacement employee identification.
You aren't going to remove the ability to get this information, I'm sorry. Canada and the UK had a far easier time of it because they aren't the size of the US. What flies there doesn't always fly here, and it's not always about lobbies or will.
WOW. This almost *exactly* the same argument that gets used here all the time to argue for the existence of God and it gets eaten up regularly. So, I take it the difference is: (possibly irrational) paranoia = good (possibly irrational) belief in deity = bad.
Feel better now?
I wish you did say something against a comment I sympathize with but you didn't. You were just trying to appear clever and ended up looking petty, like the kid who learns something about proofs in math class and tries to apply it in the next period English class. The observation may be technically true but it doesn't make it appropriate, insightful, or any less a waste of anyone's time given the context and the fact that it ignores the larger point under discussion.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
Uh there's a difference here. Speculating whether a political program will continue is not science, theorizing on the nature of the universe is. Further, we have previous experience to back up our hunches in this case, but we have no other universes from which to draw conclusions from.
But you're right. The fact that you can't disprove the existence of god doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Doesn't mean he does either.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They've got an "event" planned between then and now and they need for it to happen so that all of us forget about ever even hearing about any database.
--- Do you believe in the day?
Until they nuke the eastern and western seaboards I'll never believe its gone. EMP is a true friend of privacy. Oh, and while were at it, nuke Omaha and St. Paul. That way we can all be debt free again too.
Don't waste your time on trying to 'control' what is being collected, the bad guys won't pay any heed and the good guys already have enough problems on their plate. Instead, spend your time on pushing for this information to be handled responsibly and INTELLIGENTLY, and not just as an afterthough.
The only way to stop misuse is to stop collection. A grocer, for example, will not collect or store identifying information if that's against the law. They then won't be able to sell your alcohol, birth control and over the counter medical purchases to the insurance company. Trying to regulate that kind of thing after it's collected is the afterthought that's doomed to fail. Other institutions, like libraries should delete records when they are no longer needed to account for books and no other organizations should have access to the temporary records.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They were using — for their own purposes. If you audit a government agency — any government agency — you'll find countless databases and spreadsheets. All used for something. This list may have been discontinued, but countless others remain, and there is nothing automatically wrong about it.
As long as it is not a law, that being on a list automatically means something non-trivial, the protesting is of little sense.
A much scarier example is (or, rather, should be) the "security clearance" — it can be revoked by the government without much recourse, depriving someone of the livelyhood and ruining a career... It is just that people , who are (potentially) affected by that, are reasonable and decent, and don't generate the inflammatory headlines, so this and other real outrages are continuously drowned out by the non-issues like the list in subject.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
gloomy "1989" comparisions?
Maybe you mean 1984...?
There are some clear lines, and some very fuzzy ones here.
Most communities have very clear ideas about what kind of data collecting and sharing are abusive. A grocer who told people about so and so's booze buying was once called a gossip. Now credit cards and vendors alike collect and sell that kind of information, in defiance of community standards. If the extent of collection and selling becomes known, people are going to be offended and make laws against the practices.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
For example, the database isn't going to be deleted - it's just getting moved to a different agency. They'll give it a different name, but that database will live on. And those errors in the data? Nobody said anything about correcting them.
So it's really a "Tom shuts it down then gives it to Bob who turns it right back on" kind of deal. Politics as usual...
Nothing to see here folks, move along.
(plugs the server back in)
That's right, this new Anti-Terror database has nothing to do with the one I unplugged ten seconds ago. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength, and all that hum-dum.
-Dubya
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"US Shuts Down Controversial Anti-Terror Database" basically means that the database has been elevated to top secret status.
Did anyone notice it will officially shut down on the 220th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution? Our Founding Fathers would be appalled.
This is more than likely a stunt exactly like was pulled with Echelon. They're "officially" deactivating it and will continue to fund it and operate it secretly using alternate funding.
And it's NetworkWorld, not ComputerWorld.
They simply renamed it.
What?
... am not at all concerned about a 'database' that stores every piece of information the U.S. Air Force can lay its hands on. It still takes a human being to try to make sense of all that crap. I suspect it is being shut down, because like most government databases, nobody understands how to make it spit out any useful data.
How many takers it has about three tables, with hundreds of columns each ?
This site's logo should be \.
Because it and its users lean so far left.
"Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database."
Meanwhile, Congressional approval ratings drop to 18%.
I am MuchTall
I don't even know why anyone takes government seriously when they say they'll shut down something like this. That they'll just push it out of public view is, to me, not even doubtful.
I hate printers.
Ron Paul has voted against this sort of thing over and over again. This is all the more reason to get him into the Presidency.
Libertas in infinitum
My favorite example of this came early on after 9/11, when word broke that the Pentagon had developed a new program to disseminate lies and misinformation among the public in order to throw the terrorists off or something. There was a large uproar, so the Pentagon quickly came forth to say the program was canceled. Now that's smooth.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I think those of you who constantly complain about every little thing the government does or in this case, every little thing you can imagine the government doing, deserve to be 100% correct. You deserve to be lumped into a fascist country of the most oppressive sort. That way, your complaints will never again be baseless whining. Isn't that great?
No but you probably do. I wasn't trying to do anything of the sort. I could care less about what petty kids such as yourself think of me on /. You almost went the distance but tripped in the final stretch. Yeah my observation doesn't contribute much to the larger point under discussion, mainly because what I was responding to contributes absolutely nothing at all (my point if you missed it). There is absolutely no way you can evaluate the statement made, which essentially makes discussion of it meaningless and pointless. Now if (s)he he was discussing how to prevent such a program from recurring or patterns that suggest such a program being underneath the radar, that would definitely be meaningful. Saying that they're likely to start another program we'll never know about is pointless. You can never argue this point, and it is truly a waste of time. So yeah, if you can't even wrap your head around that, then go think about it a bit more before you waste anyone's time.
Private citizens and corporations in Canada have a very hard time getting data that is easily obtained by anyone in the United States because of the privacy safeguards we have in place. This isn't to say that the data is not available... just not generally so. We are top in the world as far as these safeguards go... the US is near the bottom of the barrel. See this map for more info.
No no, that was Talyn.
Dammit... ANOTHER week...
Gibbon said during 18th century: The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
Somebody should quote this to Cheney and Bush.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Because it will take them that long to export the schema and tables, create a new database and import the schema and tables to that.
www.wavefront-av.com
Heard on npr (possibly during their bbc hours) that they may be shutting it down but they're moving all the information into an fbi database.
I think the project and the DB were copied and then made 'black' and out of public scrutiny.
Damn, they need to get Linux.
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
"peace rallies"?
These "peace rallies" tend to degenerate into anti-Israel, pro-whatever, rebelling-against-whatever-you-got parties...
I mean, this really waters down whatever their message is supposed to be, and ironically transforms into a violent attack against any law enforcement that might be nearby.
Really have to wonder what the point of a peace rally is, when the people participating it aren't the least bit peaceful.
The entire point of a protest is to disrupt an event or the regular flow of life. If UN delegates cannot get into the UN because of the thousands of protesters around it, that sends a message to the world.
To quote the first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
If you're disrupting an event or interrupting the normal flow of life, you're no longer peaceably assembling. You're now no longer under the protection of the first amendment, and are breaking the law.
I understand the entire brouhaha surrounding "First amendment zones", and about the only time I've ever heard them mentioned was in the course of political protests that occurred at rallies in the USA. If you'd RTFA, you would have seen this:
The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. servicemembers and defense civilians all over the world.
Last time I checked protestors at the DNC and RNC weren't considered threats to U.S. servicemembers. This TALON system is mainly oriented at protestors and perceived threats of US military bases around the world, not some political convention in the USA that doesn't have any strong ties to the DoD.
If the DoD simply collected names of people publicly known to be protesters, what's the big deal? So, they want to keep someone from taking a public tour of their facilities and then chaining themselves to a radiator or something. Big deal. It doesn't sound like they are denying anyone any significant rights or freedoms.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's to prevent the data from falling into Hillary's hands in '09. We already know her love of FBI files.
If I were a terrorist, I'd support peace activists...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Saddam created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia law courts, except for personal injury.
If you feel that the war against Iraq was a free nation fighting religious fanaticism, there is a slight possibility that you have been lied to about the motives for this war.
You can't take the sky from me...
Flamebait is not how you label serious replies.