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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
"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.
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!
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
I don't know, with a name like Anonymous you're bound to be flagged.
Can I bum a sig?
Secret Threat and Local Liberal Interferer Observation Notice
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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?
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.
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.
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/
... 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.
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.
First, you are assuming that there is an "enemy". Just because Bush & Co. say we are at war and deploy our armies does not really mean we are. We are not being attacked (or at least I'm sure not) and all I see happening over there is people defending their country against foreign invaders much like white blood cells vs. a virus. You seem to be buying into the whole "war for war's sake" argument that they want you to.
Next, you are assuming that Al Qaida is a big ol' enemy like Germany was in WWII when in fact it's a close equivalent to the KKK--a small ragtag association of uber-radicals who vastly overachieved on 9/11. Going to "war" with such a group is the epitome of going after a gnat with a sledgehammer--you are giving them too much credit and are very unlikely to hit them 'cos you are using far too large a tool. The U.S. military is simply not designed to fight a guerilla war just as the Redcoats were not trained to fight George Washington's guerillas. As such, the outcome of the conflict was determined long ago; the current George is simply unwilling to admit it just as George III was at first.
Back to your "communicating with the enemy" claim. Just how many Americans do you think are really Al Qaida sympathizers? My best estimate would be under 100. You want our huge, bloated, red tape-ensconsed government to perform all this tracking to try (in vain) to come up with 100 numbnuts who barely have the $$ to pay their rent let alone do damage to anything? Again with the sledgehammer.
All of the above aside, what if I'm *not* communicating with the enemy? The Feds still have my information, who I associate with, where I've been, etc. Treating the innocent as if they were guilty is absolutely NOT how this country was designed to work. If it's how you want it to work, I suggest you go to China or some other totalitarian society and live there.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
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?
Keeping lists of citizens excercising their constitutional rights to speech and association is bad because the information can be used to intimidate citizens in subtle and hard to prove ways. While I personally don't know how being in the "Threat and Local Observation Notices" database could possibly do any harm, some people might worry that it would cause them to fail background screenings often required for employment, audits by the IRS, being singled out for "special treatment" at the airport etc. The more paranoid among us might even worry that if things were to really get bad then the first people they would come for would be those on these lists.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
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
*sigh* I really hate these bullshit "they can't do anything with it anyway" responses from you Americans. The whole point of civil liberties and such is so that you can live without persecution. It's easy to persecute people without convicting them... in fact, it's the only way. True convictions aren't persecution if they are the result of a fair trial.
The issue here is that they might be "monitoring" you due to some things you've said, done, or believe. Let's say you decide to go for a high paying, high priority job in a large company. I wonder what these military fascists will do then? Let you get the job? Or maybe anonymously tip off the HR department that you're a dangerous person, etc.
Gee, that's no violation of your freedoms.
Anyway, I hope your goverment hangs itself at the next election, either that or your smartest people start an uprising to get rid of these nutcases in control of your country.
I hope that my country never ends up like yours... ever.