Data Mining To Track Terrorists

This story by Eric Lichtblau of the Times did not capture my imagination but I did enjoy a brief "Able Danger" flashback:

WASHINGTON — A federal panel of policy makers and scientific experts urged a government-wide evaluation Tuesday of programs that sift through databases looking for clues on terrorism, to determine whether the programs are effective and legal.

The federal government has made aggressive use of so-called data-mining tools since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as counterterrorism officials in many intelligence agencies have sought to analyze records on travel habits, calling patterns, e-mail use, financial transactions and other data to pinpoint possible terrorist activity.

The National Security Agency’s program for wiretapping terror suspects without warrants, the screening of suspicious airline passengers and the Pentagon’s ill-fated Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003 because of privacy concerns, have all relied on aspects of data mining.

But in a 352-page government study released on Tuesday, a committee of the National Research Council warned that successfully using these tools to deter terrorism “will be extremely difficult to achieve” because of legal, technological and logistical problems. It said a haphazard approach to using such tools threatened both Americans’ privacy rights and the country’s legitimate national security needs.

      

Yeah, yeah.  The boring press release is here.  You can buy the book or read it online for nada.

Able was I ere I saw Able Danger... oh, well.

Comments

[clarice I'm NOT Spartacus]

We ought to do a bit more data mining on Obama:
archives prove he was a New Party member
"Another piece in the puzzle of Barack Obama has been revealed, greatly strengthening the picture of a man groomed by an older generation of radical leftists for insertion into the American political process, trading on good looks, brains, educational pedigree, and the desire of the vast majority of the voting public to right the historical racial wrongs of the land.

The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of "fusion" failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling, but after, but the membership, including Barack Obama, continued to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success. "

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/archives_prove_obama_was_a_new.html>New Party and The One

One might argue that by diminishing the role of the political parties, McCain Feingold increased the power of these leftists, couldn't one?

[bio mom]

Right on schedule, gallup releases an outlier poll showing Obama up 11. Four other tracking polls today showed some real movement towards McCain. Battleground moved 3 towards him, rasmussen moved 2 towards him, hotline moved 1 towards him, and reuters/zogby moved 1 towards him. Just underscores how unreliable it is to use polls to determine anything. Garbage in=garbage out. Just support McCain and vote.

[hrtshpdbox]

Gallup, those bastiches.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

That's registered voters, the narrower numbers are likely voters.

[pagar]

Clarice,
"One might argue that by diminishing the role of the political parties,"

In addition I think there is another factor that is not being fully accounted for.

"Ayers began developing his views while attending Columbia University's Teachers College in 1984 (Obama is also a graduate of Columbia University).He came under the influence of Maxine Green, a professor with radical views regarding the role of teachers and education. Stern wrote:

Greene told future teachers that they could help change this bleak landscape by developing a "transformative" vision of social justice and democracy in their classrooms. Her vision, though, was a far cry from the democratic optimism of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr., which most parents would endorse. Instead, critical pedagogy theorists nurse a rancorous view of an America in which it is always two minutes to midnight and a knock on the door by the thought police is imminent. The education professors feel themselves anointed to use the nation's K-12 classrooms to resist this oppressive system. Thus Maxine Greene urged teachers not to mince words with children about the evils of the existing social order. They should portray "homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder's choice." In other words, they should turn the little ones into young socialists and critical theorists.

All music to Bill Ayers's ears. The ex-Weatherman glimpsed a new radical vocation. He dreamed of bringing the revolution from the streets to the schools. And that's exactly what he has managed to do."

LUN

There is no way of knowing how many Maxine Greens have been brainwashing Americans before she got ahold of William Ayers, but William Ayers and those like him, have apparently been able to recruit massive numbers of Americans to believe that everything about America must be changed to make America a 3rd world country like the ones they seem to love so much. Just look at his traveling speech schedule. He talks to students all over, one can be sure the colleges he goes to already have like minded professors. I would be real surprised if many people, who know what is going on, are voting for Obama who have not been exposed to these radical professors.

[kim]

Isn't the fundamental problem in data mining that you can't figure out who to get warrants for until you've already looked at them. The algorithms put on the data stream sift before any individual attention is paid. The key is integrity and incorruptibility of the system, and I don't have an answer for that other than honest public service. Show me the market where I can get some of that.
======================================

[srp]

kim: We could try checks and balances. All uses of the database are recorded, including who ordered the search and what was found. Oversight and review of these records by a separate inspection office that reports to Congress and the FISA court.

Or something like that.

[clarice]

pagar, Greene and Ayers are helped by the fact that most ed majors are dumber than rocks. If we aren't going to shut down those schools, than insisting on the same admission standards that we impost on other grad schools would be a step in the right direction.

___

Charlie, I think other problems for pollsters include how many of the newly registered voters there will be and whether they'll actually vote.And how to weight this year with events and attitudes shifting so rapidly.

[Jor]

I'd really recommend reading Bruce Scheiner on the issue of data mining to find terrorists. People with a background in statistics -- will realize the enormous number of false positives generated is going to drown any 1 true positive result. If anything, it will make law enforcement more culturally lax about following through. The same problem occurs in medicine with trying to diagnose rare diseases with screening tests. For every one true case of the disease, you can cause 1000 people to undergo additional surgeries to figure out they do not have the disease.

I don't think this point is controversial amongst people with a background in statistics or computer security -- I'd love to see a source arguing teh other way though (from someone with a Ph.D. in a technical field).

[Jor]

Link to Schiener peice on data mining to find terrorists.