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DHS Ends Data-Mining Program
ExE122 writes "The Department of Homeland Security has "scrapped an ambitious anti-terrorism data-mining tool." The tool, called ADVISE, was being tested with live data rather than test data without having proper security in place. This program had already been under criticism by privacy advocates and members of Congress. However, according to the article, a DHS spokesman assures that the program will be restarted once the security and cost are re-evaluated."
I was on the same list. I didn't really think anything about not being able to use the checkin machines until it happened with a second airline. I found out when I asked the ticket agent about it. He made a phone call and said "it's okay now" and gave me my boarding pass with the special "SSSS" marker which means you get extra security screening. As in getting wanded and patted down and having my carry-on searched and rubbed with the cloth swabs that get put in the chemical sniffer. That happened for about the next 4 times I went through airport security. Since then, no problems. I can use the self-checkin terminals and everything.
Anyway, isn't this the same "Total Information Awareness" database that John Poindexter started, and was then canceled due to privacy and security concerns, then started again under a different name and director, then stopped again, and now apparently in action again only to be once again stopped? I have to wonder what they're doing. Are they like a little kid who keeps asking their parents to buy them the toy they want, hoping that maybe the 100th time they ask their dad will say okay just to shut them up? Yeah, I think that's pretty much it.
The enemies of Democracy are
Interestingly, that's one of Ron Suskind's theses in his book One Percent Doctrine. Basically, he shows that of all the pointless, paranoid things the Bush administration has done to combat "the war" on terror, using detailed financial records to roll up the nascent terrorist cells has been the only effective strategy. One that was done by using existing personnel and laws.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think I liked things better when data mining projects had the huevos to use as their logo an ominous Illuminati symbol scanning the globe.
There's something refreshingly honest about that, like a government putting WAR IS PEACE and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH on its buildings instead of pretending they're not a malevolent autocracy.