FC: NYT's Jennifer 8. Lee on U.S. visa database open to police

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Also here's an interesting article on the government's plans for a "a 
computerized network that will collect and analyze health data of people in 
eight major cities":
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/27/national/27DISE.html

-Declan

---

From: "Jennifer 8. Lee" <jenny () nytimes com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 15:11:22 -0500

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/national/31COMP.html

*****

State Department Link Will Open Visa Database to Police Officers
By JENNIFER 8. LEE


WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 - Law enforcement officials across the country will soon
have access to a database of 50 million overseas applications for United
States visas, including the photographs of 20 million applicants.

The database, which will become one of the largest offering images to local
law enforcement, is maintained by the State Department and typically
provides personal information like the applicant's home address, date of
birth and passport number, and the names of relatives.

It is a central feature of a computer system linkup, scheduled within the
next month, that will tie together the department, intelligence agencies,
the F.B.I. and police departments.

The new system will provide 100,000 investigators one source for what the
government designates "sensitive but unclassified" information. Officials
see it as a breakthrough for law enforcement, saying it will help dismantle
the investigative stumbling blocks that were roundly criticized after the
Sept. 11 attacks.

At the same time, they acknowledge the legal and policy questions raised by
information sharing between intelligence agencies and local law enforcement,
and critics have cast a wary eye as well at the visa database.

One other effect of the new system is that for the first time, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and other agencies linked by it will be able to send
one another encrypted e-mail. Previously, security concerns about the open
Internet often caused sensitive information to be faxed, mailed or sent by
courier.

The changes come as the F.B.I. continues working to upgrade its entire
computer system, which is so antiquated and compartmentalized that it cannot
perform full searches of investigative files. The bureau's director, Robert
S. Mueller III, has said that while the technology easily allows for
single-word searches, for example for "flight" or "school," it is very hard
to search for a phrase, for example "flight school."

For all the ambitious technological proposals being debated in the wake of
the 2001 terror attacks, the new unified system was cobbled from existing
networks and has required little new spending. "These are the networks that
people are already using," said Roseanne Hynes, a member of the Defense
Department's domestic security task force. "It doesn't change jobs or add
overhead."

A primary feature of the system is the State Department's enormous visa
database, whose seven terabytes give it a capacity equivalent to that of
five million floppy disks. Until now, that database has been shared only
with immigration officials.

"There is a potential source of information that isn't available elsewhere,"
said M. Miles Matthew, a senior Justice Department official who works with
an interagency drug intelligence group. "It's not just useful for terrorism.
It's drug trafficking, money laundering, a variety of frauds, not to mention
domestic crimes."

[...] 




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