| Senator Wants to Suspend Data-Mining | |
Dateline: 01/23/03
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a bill cutting off money for further development of the electronic data-mining, Total Awareness Program (TIA) being proposed by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The controversial data-mining process has been harshly criticized by civil liberties groups who call it a direct encroachment on individual liberties, cloaked in the name of terror-fighting.
Feingold told reporters his bill would place a funding moratorium on data-mining until Congress had been allowed to conduct a thorough review of the
Total Awareness Program. Appearing with Feingold at the announcement were representatives of the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans For Tax Reform and the Free Congress Foundation.Calls data mining a
threat to freedom
"The untested and controversial intelligence procedure known as
data-mining is capable of maintaining extensive files containing both public and
private records on each and every American," Feingold said. "This
unchecked system is a dangerous step that threatens one of the values we are
fighting for – freedom. The Administration has a heavy burden of proof that
such extreme measures are necessary."
Unless controlled by Congress, Feingold warned that data-mining would allow the the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and other government agencies to collect and analyze a combination of intelligence data and personal information, including an individual's traffic violations, credit card purchases, travel records, medical records, communications records, and virtually any information collected on commercial, public or private governmental databases.
Every move you make --
every step you take
Through comprehensive data-mining, everything from
people's video rentals or drugstore purchases made with a credit card to their
most private health concerns could be fed into a computer and monitored by the
federal government. In theory, data-mining would identify persons or groups
plotting terrorist attacks by tying them to suspicious patterns of behavior.
Data-mining allows for broad, ad-hoc searches of both public and private databases without specific suspicions about a person, place or thing. In other words, evidence of probable cause would not be required before initiating a data-mining records search.
Data mining looks for relations between things and people without any regard for specific suspicion. Currently, in addition to government programs like Total Information Awareness, data-mining is conducted by commercial profilers who use public records and available commercial records.
"The Administration's assurances that a data-mining system will not abuse our privacy rights ring hollow, particularly to those of us who questioned the breathtaking new federal powers in the USA PATRIOT Act," Feingold said. "It is reasonable to ask Americans to sacrifice some personal freedoms like submitting to more extensive security screenings at airports. But we should not allow the government to track our every move - from what items we purchase online, to our medical records, to our financial records without limits and without accountability."
Defending data-mining
The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA), developers of TIA data-mining project, defends the
system as not being "a 'supercomputer' to snoop
into the private lives or track the everyday activities of American citizens."
According to DARPA's Information Awareness Office, TIA would access only publicly available information, such as foreign language press reports, visa applications, car rental records and airline ticket purchases. TIA program’s deputy director Robert Popp has stated that the ultimate goal of data-mining "is to achieve a quantum leap in privacy technology to ensure data is protected and used only for lawful purposes."
In its Total Information System diagram, DARPA now refers to safeguards for personal privacy and has changed the program's controversial logo, which first depicted an all-seeing eye atop the red pyramid.
Estimated
costs of data-mining project
Congressional budget analysts have projected that the Total Information Awareness
will cost over $137 million for Fiscal Year 2003. The Congressional Research
Service projects that they will cost upwards of $575 million for Fiscal Years
2004 to 2007.
Along with immediately suspending further funding for the project, Feingold's Data-Mining Moratorium Act of 2003 will require all federal agencies to report within 90 days about any and all data-mining systems under development or in use, and the steps taken to protect the privacy of all Americans from data-mining.
Senators Jon Corzine (D-New Jersey) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) have announced they will co-sponsor the Feingold legislation.
What's your opinion?
We have been discussing the issue of privacy vs. the war on terror in the forum.
Here are a few of you comments:
- Homeland
security, or is it?
"The last administration tried to disarm the citizens by attacking the 2nd amendment and luckily it failed. This time around they implement a system - Homeland Security - under which they simply march in and do whatever, Bill of Rights or not."
Posted by HORSESENS
- Homeland
Insecurity (end of privacy)
"This cosmetic response (the Department of Homeland Security bill) to the myriad failures that made the nation vulnerable on Sept. 11, 2001, offers no assurance that Americans will be safer. Instead, it poses new dangers."
Posted by KERRYXYZ
