I thought Congress killed this beast? [ not really djf]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 21:17:03 -0400
To: jo <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: I thought Congress killed this beast?

[Of course, Admiral Poindexter has proved how much he cares about what
Congress thinks ...]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=74&u=/cmp/20030410/tc_cmp/iwk2003
0410s0018&printer=1

Total Information Awareness Project Undergoes First Test
Thu Apr 10, 6:53 PM ET
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Aaron Ricadela, InformationWeek

Pentagon (news - web sites) researchers this month completed the first
set of test data for the controversial Total Information Awareness
system, a key technologist for the project says.

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (Darpa), said at an IBM-sponsored conference on data
privacy in Almaden, Calif., this week that Americans must trade some
privacy for security. "Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you
consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy
of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off," Dyer says.

Total Information Awareness, an experimental computer system being
developed by Darpa under Vice Adm. John Poindexter, seeks to scan
information about passport, visa, and work-permit applications, plus
information about purchases of airline tickets, hotel rooms,
over-the-counter drugs, and chemicals--both here and abroad--to discern
"signature" patterns of terrorist behavior. Congressional leaders have
criticized the system's potential to spy on Americans and agreed to
restrict further research and development without consulting Congress.

Signals of potential terrorist activity are likely to be weak amid a
field of data "noise," Dyer says. TIA is designed to seek patterns that
could indicate terrorist behavior while preserving people's anonymity,
he adds. "We're testing our hypothesis on nothing but synthetic data."

Total Information Awareness, the keystone project of Darpa's Information
Awareness Office, incorporates language-translation, data-searching and
pattern-recognition, and decision-support technologies, according to the
project's Web site. According to Dyer, the system won't scan
"irrelevant" personal information about Americans, such as medical
records, but could consider records of over-the-counter drug purchases,
which could indicate planning of a bioterrorist attack.

Dyer says the initial experiment data set, completed this month, could
also consider relationships between purchases of certain chemicals,
whether the buyer or a family member was involved in an activity such as
farming that could explain a benign reason for the purchase, and where
the purchase was made.


-- 
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which
feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget
that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia
State House, August 1, 1776.


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