Return of Total Information Awareness project?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: May 10, 2005 11:26:35 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Return of Total Information Awareness project?
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com


[Note:  This item comes from reader Randall.  DLH]


> From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
> Date: May 10, 2005 8:55:12 AM PDT
> To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: Return of Total Information Awareness project?
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/94t24>
>
> DHS chief floats idea of collecting private citizens' information
> By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal
>
> Call it Total Information Awareness, homeland-style.
>
> Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea
> to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private
> citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious  
> people
> to his department.
>
> The idea, which Chertoff tossed out at an April 27 meeting with
> security-industry officials, is reminiscent of the Defense  
> Department's
> now-dead Total Information Awareness program that sought to sift  
> though
> heaps of foreign intelligence information to root out potential
> terrorist activity.
>
> According to one techie who attended the April 27 meeting, Chertoff  
> told
> the group, "Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people's
> activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the
> nonprofit could give us the names."
>
>
> Chertoff also suggested that private industry form a group to collect
> proprietary information about cyber- and other infrastructure-security
> breaches from companies; scrub it of identifying information;  
> aggregate
> it; and pass it along to the department. The financial services  
> industry
> already has such a group.
>
> "The secretary was responding to a hypothetical question with a
> hypothetical answer," said Homeland Security Department press  
> secretary
> Brian Roehrkasse. "He did not offer specific programmatic content or
> discuss any specific proposed approach. Rather, he was discussing, in
> general terms, the importance of this issue of balancing security and
> privacy."
>
> Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of
> America, organized the gathering of about 50 security-industry
> executives from companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Verizon.
> Reached by phone at the meeting, he characterized the event as "an
> organizational meeting to discuss how the [information-technology]
> industry can work more effectively with each other" and with the
> Homeland Security Department.
>
> Because the meeting was closed to the press, Miller would not discuss
> Chertoff's comments.One meeting participant said that Chertoff told  
> the
> group that having a nonprofit collect names rather than the government
> "would alleviate some of the concerns people have." Not so for this
> participant: "This is what made me sort of shift in my seat. It sounds
> like investigating every person for no reason." He was particularly
> concerned that an unknown formula created by this new group would
> determine the red flags.
> _______________________________________________
> Cuckoosnest mailing list


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