Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans

New York Times

[rs79bm]

By JOHN MARKOFF

he Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United States.

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.

Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been permitted to spy on Americans without extraordinary legal authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute details of electronic life in the United States.

Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.

"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options," he said in a speech in California earlier this year.

Admiral Poindexter quietly returned to the government in January to take charge of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Darpa. The office is responsible for developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.

The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worries civil liberties proponents.

"This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has been briefed on the project by Admiral Poindexter and the two had a lunch to discuss it, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

"As part of our development process, we hope to coordinate with a variety of organizations, to include the law enforcement community," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

An F.B.I. official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, said the bureau had had preliminary discussions with the Pentagon about the project but that no final decision had been made about what information the F.B.I. might add to the system.

A spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, Gordon Johndroe, said officials in the office were not familiar with the computer project and he declined to discuss concerns raised by the project's critics without knowing more about it.

He referred all questions to the Defense Department, where officials said they could not address civil liberties concerns because they too were not familiar enough with the project.

Some members of a panel of computer scientists and policy experts who were asked by the Pentagon to review the privacy implications this summer said terrorists might find ways to avoid detection and that the system might be easily abused.

"A lot of my colleagues are uncomfortable about this and worry about the potential uses that this technology might be put, if not by this administration then by a future one," said Barbara Simon, a computer scientist who is past president of the Association of Computing Machinery. "Once you've got it in place you can't control it."

Other technology policy experts dispute that assessment and support Admiral Poindexter's position that linking of databases is necessary to track potential enemies operating inside the United States.

"They're conceptualizing the problem in the way we've suggested it needs to be understood," said Philip Zelikow, a historian who is executive director of the Markle Foundation task force on National Security in the Information Age. "They have a pretty good vision of the need to make the tradeoffs in favor of more sharing and openness."

On Wednesday morning, the panel reported its findings to Dr. Tony Tether, the director of the defense research agency, urging development of technologies to protect privacy as well as surveillance, according to several people who attended the meeting.

If deployed, civil libertarians argue, the computer system would rapidly bring a surveillance state. They assert that potential terrorists would soon learn how to avoid detection in any case.

The new system will rely on a set of computer-based pattern recognition techniques known as "data mining," a set of statistical techniques used by scientists as well as by marketers searching for potential customers.

The system would permit a team of intelligence analysts to gather and view information from databases, pursue links between individuals and groups, respond to automatic alerts, and share information efficiently, all from their individual computers.

The project calls for the development of a prototype based on test data that would be deployed at the Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Belvoir, Va. Officials would not say when the system would be put into operation.

The system is one of a number of projects now under way inside the government to lash together both commercial and government data to hunt for patterns of terrorist activities.

"What we are doing is developing technologies and a prototype system to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists, and decipher their plans, and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully pre-empt and defeat terrorist acts," said Jan Walker, the spokeswoman for the defense research agency.

Before taking the position at the Pentagon, Admiral Poindexter, who was convicted in 1990 for his role in the Iran-contra affair, had worked as a contractor on one of the projects he now controls. Admiral Poindexter's conviction was reversed in 1991 by a federal appeals court because he had been granted immunity for his testimony before Congress about the case.

[Grut]

You forgot the </ sarcasm> tag, I hope.

I wouldda put it in, but my keyboard threw up on me first.

[rs79bm]

Hmmmm ..... why do I think that you're not a conservative, as of which this site was developed for ...... hmmmmmmm......

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Will they wipe everyones butts to...sheeeeesh all of this technology and they can't find terrorist cells on our land?

[AAABEST]

Hmmmm ..... why do I think that you're not a conservative, as of which this site was developed for ...... hmmmmmmm......

Hmmmmm ...because you're an effen idiot who doesn't know WTF you're talking about. Hmmmmm, because only a vacuous moron would think having a super computer designed to monitor every aspect of the lives of citizens in a free country coincides with "conservative" values.

Hmmmm, most of us were logged on to FR while you were still picking your nose in China trying to figure out how to send an email. Hmmm, I have dozens of FReepers who know me in real life that fully understand my conservative values. Can you name one single FReeper who knows you personally? Hmmmmmm.

[SR71A]

The truth is we cannot trust the government no matter the party in power.

Ford's quote is good, but I like Albert Nock even better:

You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things FOR you carries with it the equivalent power to do things TO you.

[FormerLurker]

Hmmmm ..... why do I think that you're not a conservative, as of which this site was developed for ...... hmmmmmmm......

Hmmmmmm..... and I thought conservatives were for smaller government and personal freedom. I suppose I was wrong.

[Djarum]

The only people this should make nervous are the murderous terrorists.

And only the witches should object to being drowned.

[Djarum]

NYT, says it all. Anything anti-American they can make up, they will.

On Wednesday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA will begin awarding contracts for the design and implementation of a Total Information Awareness TIA system.

According to the IAO's blueprint, TIA's five-year goal is the "total reinvention of technologies for storing and accessing information ... although database size will no longer be measured in the traditional sense, the amounts of data that will need to be stored and accessed will be unprecedented, measured in petabytes."
-Wired

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Anyone who runs a server can capture packets and read what is being sent. Anyone.

[HetLoo]

The only people this should make nervous are the murderous terrorists.

The only people this won't make nervous are the timorous cowards who would turn in their own grandmother for a piece of government cheese.

And the murderous terrorists.

[Sandy]

Anyone who runs a server can capture packets and read what is being sent. Anyone.

So? You indicated that you thought the article was made-up, anti-American bull, and I was just pointing you to the facts since it was obvious that you didn't know what you were talking about.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Why don't you point out in your pretty little picture you posted exactly what the author of the article is referring to then, since you obviously know what you're talking about.

The article is a lie.

The info on DARPA and the info you posted show nothing that relates to what the author is ranting about.

NYTimes, says it all.

[Sandy]

the amounts of data that will need to be stored and accessed will be unprecedented, measured in petabytes

Had to look that up...

peta-    a combining form used in the names of units of measure equal to one quadrillion (10¹⁵) of a given base unit.

[steve-b]

Yes, but you have to realize that this information will be triggered by certain events.

Yeah, just like the illegal FBI files.

Go back to your home board, DUfus.

[FreeReign]

The article is a lie. The info on DARPA and the info you posted show nothing that relates to what the author is ranting about. NYTimes, says it all.

But...but, but the posters up and down this thread trust the NYTimes....

Do you actually mean that the NYTimes is not a freedom fighting publication and that they would actually print false information?

[RedBloodedAmerican]

They base their article on the panic attack of the civil liberties people? PUHLEASE!!!

[FormerLurker]

From the High Priests of the Technocracy: The Information Awareness Office;

Now, last, but definitely not least, if you thought the logo for the Babylon project was good (used to be here, but it has been removed, see google cache), wait until you see the logo for the Information Awareness Office. Yes, friends, that's the, "All Seeing Eye" of Illuminated Free Masonry's fame. Yes, the same one that's on the back of your one dollar bills. These guys are out of the closet now. They're in control, they know it and they're not afraid to show it. The Latin phrase below the symbol, "Scientia Est Potentia," means, "Knowledge is Power." Also, notice the part of the world that's indicated in the symbol, Central Asia, the region which has been targeted for imperial occupation because of its rich oil and natural gas deposits.

TR submitted this very interesting information:

Subject: Scientia est potentia

These guys at the Information Awareness Office either don't know their Latin very well, or they are being blantantly evil.

Potentia means power but it has the connotation of unconstitutional private power. Power attained by private means and used for personal ends. What they should say is "Potestas." This is power attained by and for the public good. As in this famous quote by Francis Bacon: Ipsa scientia potestas est. Knowledge itself is power.

In my copy of the "New College Latin and English Dictionary" potentia is defined as: "force, power; political power (esp. unconstitutional power)". Whereas potestas is defined as: "power, abililty, capacity; public authority, rule, magisterial power; possibility, opportunity, permission..."

So by saying "Scientia est potentia" they're just coming out and saying, "Knowledge is unconstitutional political power for a few private individuals." Sounds about right to me. Maybe they do know their Latin after all.

[FreeReign]

They base their article on the panic attack of the civil liberties people? PUHLEASE!!!

But gee whiz Red, the NYTimes in the supporting quote actually quotes Poindexter has saying he is going to breakdown stovepipes. That sounds pretty unconstitutional to me -- how about you?

Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.

And don't you just have to trust the NYTimes on the following quote attributed to Poindexter. I mean who needs Freeping QUOTED context when you've gots the NYTime to tell you what to think the context is. "Find new sources of data" just gots to mean that they are going to peek at private data -- No?

NYTIME -- Poindexter -- "We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge, and create actionable options."

[SauronOfMordor]

The only people this should make nervous are the murderous terrorists.

Considering the saga of the 500 missing FBI files, and the mysterious coincidence of IRS audits being given to loads of conservative groups, plus individuals critical of the Clinton administration, is there anyone here who would be thoroughly comfortable with the idea of intimate personal information being available to the government?

[Who dat?]

They knew damned well who Hillary was and what she stood for. As Hugh Rodham's kid (and a big bitch on campus), she was obvious. It happened anyway, and let that be a lesson to you here.

They had clues. I’ll bet they didn’t know as much then as I known now. I’ll bet I don’t know one one-hundredth of what is to be known. A “big bitch on campus” showing up at certain legal events corresponds to a handful of wishes; nothing more. The other hand will fill up faster.

You have a poor memory of the 60s. I remember well the FBI cameras taking pictures of protestors at the Novermber 7 Vietnam Day protest in San Francisco. I was one of the stupid kids in that crowd.

I do have a poor memory of the 60’s. It gets poorer every day.

I’m not talking about taking pictures of a few assigned yahoos to establish their presence at an event. I’m talking about a system for retrieving information that can establish a pattern of movement and communication and how those incidents correspond and intersect with the movements/communications of others – here and abroad. If a system like that were in place, old HRC would have had problems IMO.

Several fundamental problems exist that make a system like that (presented in recent articles) unwieldy. There are also going to be problems interpreting the information that is retrieved. A production system probably won’t be operational in my lifetime. I think that’s unfortunate. Others disagree.