FBI Seeking To Create 6 Billion Record Database Similar To Total Information Awareness

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/13/fbi-database/

FBI Seeking To Create 6 Billion Record Database Similar To Total Information Awareness

In the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI is seeking to create a massive new data-mining program which “bears a striking resemblance” to the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program:

The FBI is seeking $12 million for the in FY2008, which will include 90,000 square feet of office space and a total of 59 staff, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents. Documents predict the NSAC will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate “records” for each man, woman and child in the United States. The “universe of subjects will expand exponentially” with the expanded role of the NSAC, the Justice Department documents assert.

Concerned about the potential for abuse, House Science and Technology Committee members Brad Miller (D-NC) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) requested this week that the Government Accountability Office investigate the proposal.

Citing the FBI’s “track record of improperly — even illegally — gathering personal information on Americans,” Miller and Sensenbrenner want the GAO to look into:

What information will be contained in the “records” it collects, whether the “records” of U.S. citizens will be included in its database, how this data will be employed and how the FBI plans to ensure that the data is not misused or abused in any way.

The congressmen’s concerns are justified. In 2005, the GAO found that the FBI’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force did not comply with all privacy and security laws. Earlier this year, an Inspector General’s report found that the FBI had repeatedly violated regulations while using National Security Letters to “obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors.”

Furthermore, data mining has yet to be proven effective in counter-terrorism. Jeff Jonas, a world renowned data mining expert and IBM Distinguished Engineer, wrote in a recent Cato Institute study on “predictive” data mining that because it is extremely difficult to distinguish between ordinary behavior and terrorist behavior, programs similar to NSAC are likely to “flood the national security system with false positives — suspects who are truly innocent.”

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. This fucking shit has to stop!!!!

:grr:

[BeHereNow]

2. TIA never went away, the wolves just slipped into different sheepskins.

In other words,
Same pig, different shade of lipstick.
BHN
On edit- no offense intended to actual pigs, sheep or wolves

[firefox_fan]

6. Yup. Exactly. Different name.

Acronyms and intel-related agencies come and go on a yearly basis these days. It's easy to hide stuff. Just hide the budget for project X under a different label and it won't be touched.

[file83]

8. The new name is "ADVISE" - they changed it last year...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=365492

It stand for (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement).

The Semantic Enhancement is a sort of Artificial Intelligence designed to understand the "meaning" of conversational type language - so if someone says "That movie will bomb!", the computer will understand that it isn't a threat. My guess is that they are scanning both digitally typed words and spoken form.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. Isn't this also the same shit (pardon my language..angry here) that people screamed

about years ago with J. Edgar Hoover, except this is a million times more insidious. Welcome to the New World Order and 1984.

BTW...the immigration bill has a provision for the immigrants to have their biometrics on their identification..don't think it's going to stop there. What's upsetting to me is that the Democrats are behind that.

[Turbineguy]

3. Will that database fit

on a laptop hard drive so somebody can take it home and lose it? Because if it doesn't, there's really no point is there?

Edited to include: :crazy: :sarcasm: :banghead:

[jimshoes]

4. Sure, they make really big hard drives

these days. Is there a "Do Not Spy" list I can get on if I want to opt out of their little spy program?

[firefox_fan]

5. Lots of these expensive BS buildings going up in Maryland.

It's outrageous.

[tbyg52]

7. Pay cash as much as possible

Give as little information as possible. When asked to fill out a form, lie whenever possible. I cribbed these recommendations from Heinlein (_Friday_, I think it was), and I think they are good ones.

[Lars39]

10. This needs more exposure.