FC: Military survelliance program aims to detect biowar attack

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2671596,00.html

Catching The Bug Before It Kills
By Doug Brown, Interactive Week
January 7, 2001 7:26 PM ET

Web sites and a broad sweep of electronic databases are being targeted by 
the military for a vast surveillance project aimed at detecting incidents 
of bio-terrorism before it's too late.  [...]

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Date: Tue,  9 Jan 2001 22:58:56 -0500
Message-Id: <200101092258.AA586350668 () mail cipherwar com>
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From: " Scully () cipherwar com" <Scully () mail cipherwar com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: DARPA's new Bio-Surveillance program

URL: http://cipherwar.com/news/01/darpa_baa0117.htm

BAA 01-17: A Biological Defense System or an Infringement of Privacy? 
....Jan.10.2001

In addition to the usual threats against the United States' national 
security, a relatively new threat has arisen - the threat of biological 
terrorism. There have already been attacks using biological agents in other 
countries and possibly against the US military but these have been on 
relatively small scales. The possibility of a nation-wide or even global 
attack is made possible by the relatively small doses of the agent needed, 
the communicability of the resulting disease and the misdiagnosis of 
disease as either the common cold or flu. For a comprehensive report 
regarding the threat of biological terrorism and especially that of 
anthrax, please read Cipherwar's article, entitled, "Anthrax: Are We 
Prepared" by visiting http://www.cipherwar.com/news/00/anthrax_meta4.htm .

To address this growing threat, the Defense Advanced Research Projects 
Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office (ISO) has issued a Broad Agency 
Announcement (BAA) to solicit research proposals for a Bio-Surveillance 
System project designated BAA 01-17. The initial proposal was published 
December 27, 2000 in conjunction with a relatively detailed fact sheet. A 
final report is currently being prepared by personnel at DARPA and is said 
to be available shortly. The article that follows is not complete but 
includes all the information that is currently available. Stay tuned in the 
coming months for updates as they become available.

The main objective of this Bio-Surveillance program is to mine information 
from non-traditional sources in the hope that the combination of 
information will alert officials to a biological attack faster than would 
be possible relying solely on diagnoses made by medical personnel. Due to 
the fact that several infections with biological agents manifest themselves 
with initial symptoms resembling those of the flu or the common cold, the 
possibility that a terrorist attack could go unnoticed for a lengthy period 
of time is one of the biggest dangers associated with such an attack.

As time passes, those infected with the biological agent die and the 
disease can continue to spread throughout the population without any 
treatment, quarantine or vaccination systems intact. Traditional disease 
surveillance has relied upon the watchful eye of medical professionals who 
recognize a disease, order the appropriate tests to confirm or refute the 
diagnosis and take the appropriate course of action to treat the illness. 
However, during the aftermath of a terrorist attack, the inherent delays in 
the lengthy process of diagnosis would result in countless deaths.

A typical theoretical example follows. Within 24 hours following anthrax 
infection, an individual begins to feel flu-like symptoms. If the infected 
person actually visits a doctor and if the doctor does not know that there 
has been a release of anthrax into the environment, the doctor would 
diagnose the person as having the flu and send them home. Meanwhile, the 
individual becomes sicker and sicker and soon becomes refractory to 
antibiotics designed to treat anthrax. There is a short window of time that 
the medication will actually work and once past that, the infected 
individual has a 99% chance of dying. Thus, with the aid of a surveillance 
system, the epic results of a biological terrorist attack could be 
minimized by detecting the attack and taking appropriate measures before 
many lives are lost.

DARPA, in support of their proposal says that "surveillance for covert 
biological warfare and biological terrorist activities is needed to counter 
the threat. If an event occurs, surveillance is needed to identify the 
presence of the pathogen or the initial indicators of disease as soon as 
possible so that a rapid response can be implemented." In fact, DARPA 
conducted a simulated project that showed that with proper 
bio-surveillance, an abnormal health event caused by a terrorist attack 
could be detected days before identification by the medical community. 
These critical days could save an entire city's population.

The Bio-Surveillance system will collect data from grocery stores' sales, 
pharmacy databases, school absentee databases, animal surveillance 
networks, veterinarian and health care records, and apply the information 
to an abnormal disease detection algorithm that will be able to identify a 
biological attack.
The Bio-Surveillance System program intends to demonstrate that it is 
feasible to 1) develop an integrated system using diverse military, 
government (federal, state and local) and commercial databases from 
geographically dispersed locations, 2) glean applicable data from these 
databases while maintaining patient privacy privileges, 3) analyze the data 
to discern abnormal biological events from normal epidemiology patterns and 
4) provide alerts to the appropriate DOD emergency response infrastructure.
BAA 01-17 is only in the initial planning stages. DARPA holds lofty goals 
for their proposed surveillance system.
The vision for the Bio-Surveillance Project is to develop the information 
technology necessary to alert the DOD of any clandestine bio-agent release 
within the CONUS, in time for adequate response. The envisioned network 
would gather and integrate information from non-traditional health 
information sources...and state-of-the-art bio-sensors for a city with a 
large DOD population. The system would support real-time epidemiological 
analysis and autonomous alerts of any anomalous or unusual health event in 
the DOD military or civilian population. Once a possible anomalous event is 
detected, the system would provide the capability for a medical expert to 
quickly analyze the possible cause and isolate the infected population for 
timely treatment.
As for money, $24 million of taxpayers' money will fund the five-year DARPA 
project that will be a system to protect primarily Department of Defense 
military and civilian personnel. What about the rest of the public?

The United States and its allies need some sort of counter to the very real 
threat of biological terrorism. However, is the development of yet another 
public surveillance program really the answer? Especially a public 
surveillance program that holds as its primary objective to protect DoD 
military and civilian personnel? Over the recent years, a few undercover 
surveillance programs have been discovered and people in general seem 
appalled at the notion that they are under the watchful eye of Big Brother. 
BAA 01-17 may become the first "publicly-acknowledged" surveillance system, 
one that is known about while it is in action. Combing the currently 
available information on the Bio-Surveillance System, there is very little 
mentioned about protecting the public's privacy. Perhaps the issue of 
privacy is a lower priority or even an afterthought to protecting the 
nation and especially DoD employees from a terrorist attack. We should be 
weary of such a system and approach it with extr!
eme caution.

Contributed by meta4 () cipherwar com

For More Information:
http://www.darpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01-17..htm

Sources:
http://www.arpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01_17faq.html
http://www.darpa.mil/baa/BAA01-17.htm
http://www.darpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01-17..htm
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2671596,00.html

--
Founder
Cipherwar: Information Warfare for Free Thinkers
http://www.Cipherwar.com
--




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