Critics Say Defense 'Total Information Awareness' Impractical

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Will Doherty <wild () eff org>
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:01:04 -0800
To: eff-priv () eff org
Subject: [E-PRV]Fwd: FEN: [News] Critics Say Defense 'Total Information
Awareness' Impractical


> http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/121202h1.htm
>
> December 12, 2002
>
> By Shane Harris
> Govexec.com
>
> Critics Say Defense 'Total Information Awareness' Impractical
>
> Security advocates and technology experts threw cold water on a
> controversial Defense Department plan to create a new counterterrorism
> system that would use information technology to sniff out clues to a
> possible terrorist assault and identify attackers before they strike. The
> critics said the system, currently being researched by the Pentagon, would
> violate civil liberties, undermine commerce and probably wouldn't work.
>
> Charles Peña, a policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute in
> Washington, said it's statistically unlikely that the system could predict
> and pre-empt attacks and also avoid targeting innocent people as suspected
> terrorists. He said that if the system-which theoretically would analyze
> relationships among transactions such as credit card or airline ticket
> purchases-were applied to the entire population, almost as many people would
> incorrectly be identified as terror plotters as would be correctly fingered.
> That scenario would make the technology useless, said Peña, who argued
> against spending millions of dollars to develop it.
>
> The Total Information Awareness (TIA) system is managed by the Defense
> Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's main research and
> development unit. It would use data retrieval, biometric identification and
> other technologies to analyze information in databases. DARPA has not yet
> said what databases would be searched, but controversy has engulfed the
> project amid fears that private purchases and travel patterns might become
> the subject of government inspection.
>
> Peña, delivered his remarks Thursday at a briefing about the project for
> congressional staff members and journalists. He was joined by civil
> libertarians who derided the Pentagon's work as another in a growing list of
> excessive encroachments upon privacy and due process undertaken by the Bush
> administration since the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
> Bob Levy, a Cato senior fellow, called upon officials to define the scope of
> the TIA system and to set limits on what it would collect, whom it would
> monitor and what people would have access to its data. Levy feared that
> without such clarification, the system could result in expansions of
> domestic enforcement surveillance and limitations on privacy rights already
> permitted by post-Sept. 11 legislation and executive actions.
>
> Wayne Crews, Cato's director of technology policy studies, also said the TIA
> system could undermine electronic commerce, because business today is
> predicated on the sanctity of privately owned databases. He worried that if
> companies were forced to submit their databases to inspection by the system,
> the customer's assumption of privacy would be assailed.
>
> The TIA system project is managed by former National Security Adviser John
> Poindexter, who was convicted after the Iran-Contra scandal on felony counts
> of lying to Congress. That conviction was overturned. Poindexter hatched the
> idea for the system and was hired by DARPA earlier this year on a contract
> basis to oversee it.
>
> Levy echoed the concerns of many critics that Poindexter shouldn't be in
> charge of such a potentially sensitive national security tool, given his
> history of making false public statements. "The concern is not that
> [Poindexter] is not the right man for the job. The problem is that he may be
> the right man," Levy said.
>
> Peña, said the administration's best public relations move would be, at
> least, to replace Poindexter with another manager.
>
> Poindexter has repeatedly refused to grant interviews to the news media.
> However, his deputy, Robert Popp, has spoken to journalists and at public
> gatherings. He has emphasized that DARPA isn't building a machine to search
> information, but is testing the technological viability of the concept using
> fictional or legally obtained data. Additionally, Popp said, the agency is
> building privacy protections into the system's design, looking for ways to
> encrypt data so that only authorized people could see the name of a person
> associated with a piece of information.
>
> Once DARPA's research is complete-probably in about three years-the agency
> would share the plans with agencies interested in using the system, Popp
> said. Likely interested parties would include the CIA, FBI, Homeland
> Security Department and National Security Agency.
>
> sharris () govexec com

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