FBI & Dept Of Educ - Mining Student's Records In Anti-Terror Op [View All]

[kpete]

Thursday, August 31, 2006
Education Department Mined Hundreds of Students' Records as Part of FBI Antiterrorist Operation
By JEFFREY SELINGO

The U.S. Education Department has given the Federal Bureau of Investigation information on hundreds of students who applied for financial aid over the past five years as part of the federal government's antiterrorism investigations following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The program, known as Project Strike Back, was aimed at finding out if suspected terrorists were financing their operations through federal student aid obtained by using other students' identities. The secret effort was uncovered by a journalism student at Northwestern University, Laura McGann.

Under the program, the FBI provided names to the Education Department to cross-check in the department's database of applicants for student financial aid. The repository keeps information on some 14 million students per year who apply for federal financial aid by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, the standard application form that the federal government, state governments, and most colleges use to determine students' eligibility for financial aid. Included in the database are students' names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver's-license numbers.

Fewer than 1,000 names were checked in the database over five years, Mary Mitchelson, general counsel to the Education Department's inspector general, said in an interview today. The project was run through her office.

more at:
http://chronicle.com/free/2006/08/2006083105n.htm