The Department of Homeland Security is testing a data-mining program
that would attempt to spot terrorists by combing vast amounts of
information about average Americans, such as flight and hotel
reservations. Similar to a Pentagon program killed by Congress in 2003
over concerns about civil liberties, the new program could take effect
as soon as next year. But researchers testing the system are
likely to already have violated privacy laws by reviewing real
information, instead of fake data, according to a source familiar with
a congressional investigation into the $42.5 million program. Bearing the unwieldy name Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization,
Insight and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE), the program is on the
cutting edge of analytical technology that applies mathematical
algorithms to uncover hidden relationships in data. The idea is to
troll a vast sea of information, including audio and visual, and
extract suspicious people, places and other elements based on their
links and behavioral patterns. The privacy violation, described
in a Government Accountability Office report that is due out soon, was
one of three by separate government data mining programs, according to
the GAO. "Undoubtedly there are likely to be more," GAO Comptroller
David M. Walker said in a recent congressional hearing. The
violations involved the government's use of citizens' private
information without proper notification to the public and using the
data for a purpose different than originally envisioned, said the
source, who declined to be identified because the report is not yet
public. The issue lies at the heart of the debate over whether
pattern-based data mining -- or searching for bad guys without a known
suspect -- can succeed without invading people's privacy and violating
their civil liberties.
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