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Mitt
Romney
- Jay
Garrity
- Political
- Police
- Car
- Massachusetts
- Company
- New
Hampshire - Databases
- Reporter
- Privacy
- 2008
Election - "Romney
aide is the focus of probe: Allegedly acted as State
Police trooper." ... "State Police are investigating one of [2008 election
Republican Presidential candidate] Mitt Romney's top campaign aides for
allegedly impersonating a trooper by calling a Wilmington [Massachusetts]
company and threatening to cite the driver of a company van for erratic
driving, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the probe."
...
"Jay Garrity, who is director of operations on Romney's presidential campaign
and a constant presence at his side, became the primary target of the investigation,
according to one of the sources, after authorities traced the cellphone
used to make the call back to him" ... "The New Hampshire attorney general,
according to the Associated Press, has also opened an investigation into
a report that a Romney aide, later identified as Garrity, pulled over a
New York Times reporter in New Hampshire and said he had run his license
plate." ... "New Hampshire law prohibits private citizens from accessing
license plate databases or pulling over fellow citizens." ... "In 2004,
the Globe reported, Garrity was cited and fined for driving a Crown Victoria
with red and blue lights mounted in the grill, a siren, a PA system, and
strobe lights; and for having a nightstick and identification showing a
State Police patch that read "Official Business."" -By
Stephanie Ebbert and Scott Helman with contributions by Suzanne Smalley,
Andrea Estes, and Jonathan Saltzman -Boston/Globe
20070414
Noteworthy
- Texas
- Political
- Intelligence
- Law
- Enforcement
- Terrorism
- Database
- Business
- KY
- "Perry's
database of Texans concerns lawmakers." ... "If you've
had a traffic ticket recently, you likely are in the privately run database
of criminals and potential terrorists being kept by [Texas Republican Governor]
Gov. Rick Perry's office." ... "The database is intended to centralize
information for police agencies, but some state lawmakers are afraid it
can be misused for political purposes if the governor's office controls
it instead of the Texas Department of Public Safety [DPS]." ... "The Texas
Data Exchange database, TDEx, was developed after 9/11 and Perry established
an Office of Homeland Security." ... "State law says it was to be overseen
by the DPS, but it was quickly moved to the Office of Homeland Security
at Perry's request, DPS Col. Thomas Davis testified Friday before the House
State Affairs Committee." ... "Names of more than 1 million Texans are
housed in the database, drawn from records of state, local and, soon, federal
law enforcement agencies." ... "The database has information ranging from
intelligence on potential terrorists to standard criminal convictions to
drug investigations to speeding tickets and red-light violations." ...
"TDEx is also poised for a major expansion by the end of May, when it also
will start tapping into national records from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Bureau of Prison Management, and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, [Perry's director of homeland security, Steve] McCraw
said." ... "Critics note that the governor's homeland security office is
not a law enforcement agency and question its authority to access law enforcement
data under federal law." ... "The TDEx database is managed by Appriss Inc.
of Louisville, Ky., and is an extension of its JusticeXchange program to
provide state and local law enforcement agencies with a unified national
crime database." -By Polly Ross Hughes and R. G. Ratcliffe
with contributions by Gary Scharrar -HoustonChronicle.com
20070329
Consumer
- Database
- Hackers
- Corporate
- Computer
- Net
- Crime
- "TJX
discloses largest data theft: 45.7M customers." ...
"The theft of millions of customer credit and debit card numbers from the
parent of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and other retail chains underscores the
rising sophistication of cybercriminals." ... "TJX said late Wednesday
that hackers swiped account numbers for 45.7 million customers over a two-year
period — the biggest publicly disclosed data theft." ... "One way hackers
break into corporate databases is by infecting laptops used by employees
and suppliers who are permitted access to the company's intranet via a
virtual private network, or VPN." -By Byron Acohido
and Jon Swartz -USATODAY
20060901
Entertainment
- Business
- Technology
- Consumer
- Database
- Parents
& Children - "Disney's
Finger Scan Upgrade Raises Privacy Concerns." ...
"An upgrade on Disney's finger scanning technology implemented to prevent
ticket fraud or resale is raising concerns from privacy advocates, according
to Local 6 News." ... "For years, Walt Disney World has been reading the
shape of visitors' fingers on its property. Now, the upgraded controversial
finger scanning machines scan fingerprint information." ... ""Privacy advocates
worry that Disney is getting too much of your personal information and
their concern is where that information goes after it is scanned," Local
6 reporter Jessica D'Onofrio said." -Local6.com
20060607
Noteworthy
- Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Computer
- Database
- Identity
Theft - Law
Enforcement - Maryland
- "Data
Theft Affected Most in Military: National Security
Concerns Raised." ... "Social Security numbers and other personal information
for as many as 2.2 million U.S. military personnel -- including nearly
80 percent of the active-duty force -- were among the data stolen from
the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs analyst last month, federal
officials said yesterday, raising concerns about national security as well
as identity theft." ... "The department announced that personal data for
as many as 1.1 million active-duty military personnel, 430,000 National
Guard members and 645,000 reserve members may have been included on an
electronic file stolen May 3 from a department employee's house in Aspen
Hill [Maryland]. The data include names, birth dates and Social Security
numbers, VA spokesman Matt Burns said." ... "Defense officials said the
loss is unprecedented and raises concerns about the safety of U.S. military
forces. But they cautioned that law enforcement agencies investigating
the incident have not found evidence that the stolen information has been
used to commit identity theft." ... "Army spokesman Paul Boyce said: "Obviously
there are issues associated with identity theft and force protection.""
... "For example, security experts said, the information could be used
to find out where military personnel live. "This essentially can create
a Zip code for where each of the service members and [their] families live,
and if it fell into the wrong hands could potentially put them at jeopardy
of being targeted," said David Heyman, director of the homeland security
program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)."
... "Another worry is that the information could reach foreign governments
and their intelligence services or other hostile forces, allowing them
to target service members and their families, the experts said." (1, 2)
-By Ann Scott Tyson and Christopher Lee with contributions
by Ernesto Londoño -WashingtonPost
Government
- Military
- Computer
- Database
- Identity
Theft - People
- Homes
- Education
- Consumer
- "Data
on 2.2M Active Troops Stolen From VA: Pentagon Says
Data on About 2.2 Million Active-Duty Troops Among Material Stolen From
VA Employee." ... "Nearly all active-duty military, Guard and Reserve members
about 2.2 million total may be at risk for identity theft because their
personal information was among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee
last month." ... "In a new disclosure Tuesday, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson
said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000
Navy and National Guard personnel were among the 26.5 million veterans
whose names, birthdates and Social Security numbers were stolen on May
3." ... "The number is actually much higher because the VA realized it
had records on file for most active-duty personnel because they are eligible
to receive VA benefits such as GI Bill educational assistance and the home
loan guarantee program." (1, 2)
-Hope Yen -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
20060514
Secret
- Military
- Government
- Intelligence
- Phone
- Database
- Privacy
- Law
- Civil
Liberties - Terrorism
- Politics
- "Poll:
51% oppose NSA database." ... "A majority of Americans
disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions
of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup
Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other,
not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public."
... "POLL RESULTS:NSA
database reaction" ... "The survey of 809 adults Friday and Saturday
shows a nation wrestling with the balance between fighting terrorism and
protecting civil liberties." ... "By 51%-43%, those polled disapprove of
the program, disclosed Thursday in USA TODAY. The National Security Agency
has been collecting phone records from three of the nation's largest telecommunication
companies since soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." -By
Susan Page -USATODAY
20060512
Privacy
- Opinion
- Secret
- Military
- Government
- Intelligence
- Phone
- Database
- Civil
Liberties - San
Francisco - California
- "Breaking
the Law? A privacy advocate explains why Americans
should care about the NSA's database of phone records." ... "Domestic spying
or national security? The debate over whether the government is poking
too closely into Americans' lives was inflamed this week following reports
that the National Security Agency (NSA) is creating a massive database
of millions of phone records-and that three major telecom companies have
cooperated in the effort. For privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), a [California] San Francisco-based nonprofit, the answer
is clear: the NSA is spying on Americans. And, according to EFF, it is
illegal for telecom companies to supply customer calling details to the
NSA unless they follow established legal procedures to obtain a warrant."
... "If the EFF has its way, the onus may soon be on the federal government
to prove that its requests to the telecom companies were legal. In January
of this year, the group filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T for
"allowing and assisting" the NSA's "illegal wiretapping and data-mining."
The Department of Justice has already stepped in, indicating April 28 that
it intends to seek dismissal of the case by asserting the "military and
state secrets privilege." With recent allegations in USA Today that Verizon
and BellSouth also covertly provided information about domestic phone calls
to the federal government, the progress of EFF's suit will be scrutinized
by civil libertarians and other privacy advocates. A hearing to determine
the court schedule for this case will be held May 17." (1, 2)
-By Susanna Schrobsdorff -MSNBC/Newsweek
Secret
- Government
- Terrorism
- Telephone
- Database
- Intelligence
- Law
- Civil
Liberties - Politics
- California
- Russ
Feingold
- Wisconsin
- "Bush
Says U.S. Spying Is Not Widespread." ... "President
Bush today denied that the government is "mining or trolling through the
personal lives of innocent Americans," as Democrats expressed outrage over
a news report describing a National Security Agency program that has collected
vast amounts of telephone records." ... "He [Bush] said all intelligence
work was conducted "within the law" and that domestic conversations were
not listened to without a court warrant." ... ""The privacy of all Americans
is fiercely protected in all our activities," he said. "Our efforts are
focused on Al Qaeda and their known associates."" ... "But Democrats reacted
angrily to the USA Today article and its description of the program's vast
size, including an assertion by one unnamed source that its goal was the
creation of a database of every phone call ever made within the United
States' borders." ... "Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat
who is a member of the Intelligence Committee as well as the Judiciary
Committee, appeared to confirm at least the gist of the article, while
stressing that what was under discussion was not wiretapping. "It's fair
to say that what is in the news this morning is not content collection,"
she said." ... "Even so, she warned, "I happen to believe that we are on
our way to a major Constitutional confrontation on the Fourth Amendment
guarantees over unreasonable search and seizure."" ... "Senator Russell
D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who is also on both the judiciary and
intelligence panels, expressed dismay over what he termed the administration's
"arrogance and abuse of power." He said the United States can fight terrorism
and still protect privacy, "but only if we have a president who believes
in these principles."" (1, 2)
-By John O'Neil -NYTimes
-
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, D-Vt.: "Look at this headline."
-
KWAME HOLMAN: "Only hours after it appeared in print, the story that the
National Security Agency secretly has been gathering a giant database of
phone records set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill. Vermont Democrat Patrick
Leahy was visibly angry about it and lashed out at the Bush administration
at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting scheduled to discuss judicial nominations."
-
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: "Only through the press, we begin to learn the truth.
The secret collection of phone call records tens of millions of Americans.
Now, are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved
with al-Qaida? If that's the case, we've really failed in any kind of a
war on terror."
-
KWAME HOLMAN: "Arizona Republican Jon Kyl responded."
-
SEN. JON KYL, R-Ariz.: "This is nuts. We are in a war, and we've got to
collect intelligence on enemy, and you can't tell the enemy in advance
how you're going to do it."
-
KWAME HOLMAN: "Emblazoned across the front page of USA Today, the lengthy
report said the code-breaking National Security Agency contracted three
of the nation's largest phone companies to provide records of home and
business telephone calls made by their customers." ... "The NSA earlier
was revealed to have been monitoring, without warrants, international phone
calls and e-mails thought to be linked to terrorists." ... "USA Today telecommunications
reporter Leslie Cauley spent the last several months preparing today's
story."
-
LESLIE CAULEY, USA Today: "The NSA is collecting the call detail records
of millions of ordinary Americans."
-
KWAME HOLMAN: "The companies reportedly contracted by the spy agency are
AT&T, Bell South and Verizon."
-
LESLIE CAULEY: "The pitch to the phone companies was: We feel this information
can be very helpful in smoking out, you know, and tracking suspected terrorists.
And, again, three out of the four agreed."
-
KWAME HOLMAN: "But Qwest, a telecommunications company that provides local
phone service to 14 million customers in 14 western and northwestern states,
reportedly refused to participate."
Michael
Hayden - Secret
- Government
- Terrorism
- Telecommunications
- Intelligence
- Database
- People
- Business
- Law
- Civil
Liberties - Privacy
- Politics
- "NSA
has massive database of Americans' phone calls."
... "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone
call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T,
Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement
told USA TODAY." ... "The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses
across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans
— most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not
involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency
is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist
activity, sources said in separate interviews." ... ""It's the largest
database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others
who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified
by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every
call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added." ... "For
the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed
records of calls they made — across town or across the country —
to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others." ... "The
three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the
NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking
suspected terrorists, they said." ... "The sources would talk only under
a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret." ... "Air Force
Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director
of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post,
Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program.
Hayden declined to comment about the program." ... "The NSA's domestic
program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White
House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA
to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international
e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party
to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in
the NSA's efforts to create a national call database." -By
Leslie Cauley with contributions by John Diamond
-USATODAY
20060321
Identity
Theft - Government
- Business
- Accountants
- Database
- Marketers
- Consumer
- Law
- Ill.
- "IRS
plans to allow preparers to sell data: Critics said
the proposed regulation could lead to a loss of privacy for clients." ...
"The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal
income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers
will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire
returns - to marketers and data brokers." ... "The change is raising alarm
among consumer and privacy-rights advocates." ... "Criticism also came
from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS
Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third
parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser
rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity
theft and other risks." ... ""There is no more sensitive information than
a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be
sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling,"
Obama wrote." -By Jeff Gelles
-Philly.com
20060310
Government
- Military
- Law
Enforcement - Terrorism
- Databases
- Religion
- Privacy
- Politics
- Florida
- "Pentagon
admits errors in spying on protesters: NBC: Official
says peaceful demonstrators' names erased from database." ... "The Department
of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it
had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic
terrorist threats. The letter followed an NBC report focusing on the Defense
Department's Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, report." ...
"In 2003, the Defense Department directed a little-known agency, Counterintelligence
Field Activity (CIFA), to establish and "maintain a domestic law enforcement
database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats
directed against the Department of Defense." Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz also established TALON at that time." ... "The original
NBC News report, from December, focused on a secret 400-page Defense Department
document listing more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country
over a 10-month period. One such incident was a small group of activists
meeting in a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla. [Florida], to plan
a protest against military recruiting at local high schools." (1, 2)
-Contributed to by Lisa Myers
-MSNBC
20060223
Total
Information Awareness
- Government
- Military
- Terrorism
- Secret
- Database
- Technology
- Privacy
- Law
- Politics
- "TIA
Lives On." ... "A controversial counter-terrorism
program, which lawmakers halted more than two years ago amid outcries from
privacy advocates, was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within
the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the
privacy of U.S. citizens." ... "Research under the Defense Department's
Total Information Awareness program --which developed technologies to predict
terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records
of people in the United States -- was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development
agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National
Security Agency, according to documents obtained by National Journal
and to intelligence sources familiar with the move. The names of key projects
were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding
remained intact, often under the same contracts." -By
Shane Harris -NationalJournal.com
20051220
Government
- Military
- Intelligence
- Total
Information Awareness
- Secrecy
- Consumer
- Telecommunications
-Databases
- Privacy
- Law
-West-Virginia
- Dick
Cheney - Terrorism
- "Bush,
Democrats swap charges over his approval of wiretaps."
... "The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller
of West Virginia, released a letter he wrote to Vice President Dick Cheney
on July 17, 2003, the day he learned of the surveillance in a meeting with
Cheney, three other lawmakers and the heads of the CIA and NSA. Rockefeller
expressed deep misgivings and said the program reminded him of Total Information
Awareness, a controversial Pentagon effort to mine credit-card data, cellphone
calls and even bank withdrawals to spot terrorist activity." ... ""These
concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views
with my colleagues" by secrecy laws, Rockefeller said Monday. He accused
the president and his aides of "repeatedly misrepresenting the facts" in
recent days and demanded a "full investigation into the legal and operational
aspects of the program" now that the program has come to light." -By
Todd J. Gillman -DallasNews.com
via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
20050430
-
-
- Databases
- "Google
searches for quality not quantity." ... "The database
will be built by continually monitoring the number of stories from all
news sources, along with average story length, number with bylines, and
number of the bureaux cited, along with how long they have been in business.
Google's database will also keep track of the number of staff a news source
employs, the volume of internet traffic to its website and the number of
countries accessing the site." -NewScientist
20050419
- Databases
- "DSW
Data Theft Much Larger Than Estimated.." ... "Thieves
who accessed a DSW Shoe Warehouse database obtained 1.4 million credit
card numbers and the names on those accounts 10 times more than investigators
estimated last month." ... "The company, a subsidiary of Retail Ventures
Inc., announced the thefts last month after notifying federal authorities
and credit card companies." ... "Besides the credit card numbers, the thieves
obtained driver's license numbers and checking account numbers from 96,000
transactions involving checks, the company said."
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20050412
Databases
- Hacking
-
-
- "March
data breach much larger than first reported." ...
"Data broker LexisNexis said Tuesday that personal information may have
been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found
in a data breach announced last month." ... "An investigation by the firm's
Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been
fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible
theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers."
-Reuterswith
contributions by Adam Pasick via -USATODAY
20050329
-
- Databases
- "Freelancers
Hit the Jackpot." ... "The settlement, which could
net qualifying freelancers a collective minimum of $10 million and maximum
of $18 million, is the result of a lawsuit meant to remunerate writers
for work that had been published over the years in online databases without
their approval. " -By Rachel Metz
-Wired
20050216
California
- Consumer
- Company
- Computer
- Database
- Net
- Hackers
- "Big
ID Theft in California." ... "A company that collects
consumer data warned thousands of Californians that hackers penetrated
the company's computer network and may have stolen credit reports, Social
Security numbers and other sensitive information." ... "ChoicePoint Inc.,
which sells such data to government agencies and a variety of companies,
acknowledged Tuesday that several hackers broke into its computer database
and purloined data from as many as 35,000 Californians."
-Wired
20030228
-
-
- "New checks
planned for air travelers: Plan for background
checks draw objections from some." ... "Civil liberties groups are raising
objections to a government plan for a new system that would check background
information and assign a threat level to everyone who buys a ticket for
a commercial flight." ... "Transportation officials say CAPPS II — Computer
Assisted Passenger Prescreening System — will use databases that already
operate in line with privacy laws and won’t profile based on race, religion
or ethnicity." -AP
via -MSNBC
20021220
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Federal
database spy site fading away." ... "Call it the
incredibly shrinking government Web site." ... "As controversy grows over
the Defense Department's shadowy Total Information Awareness (TIA) project,
the project's virtual presence is steadily decreasing. If fully implemented,
TIA would link databases from sources such as credit card companies, medical
insurers, and motor vehicle databases for police convenience in hopes of
snaring terrorists." ... "First, biographical information about the TIA
project leaders, including retired Adm. John Poindexter, disappeared from
the Defense Department's site last month. A mirror
that one activist created from Google's cache shows the deleted information
included four resumes listing past work experience but no addresses or
contact information." -By Declan McCullagh-CNET
/News
20021218
OPINION
-
-
-
- TIA:
Total Information Awareness
- "Snooping
in All the Wrong Places: Not only would the
Administration's plan to centralize every American's records destroy privacy,
the security payoff would be minimal." ... "The 2002 elections proved one
thing: The promise of security wins votes. The GOP campaigned on a pledge
to make the country safer, and it brought home one of the biggest midterm
victories in decades. That huge win may have emboldened the Bush Administration
to ignore widespread criticism of the Defense Dept.'s $240 million effort
to develop a Total Information Awareness system (TIA)." ... "The outrage
over TIA doesn't seem to have reached the President's ear, but it should.
It's not too late for him to realize the folly of such a plan. Funded by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project would
combine every American's bank records, tax filings, driver's license information,
credit-card purchases, medical data, and phone and e-mail records into
one giant centralized database. This would then be combed through for evidence
of suspicious activity." -By Jane Black
-BusinessWeek/Daily
20021203
TIA:
Total Information Awareness
-
-
- Law
Enforcement News
- "Why
the Pentagon will watch where you shop: New
Total Information Awareness project will sniff company databases for terrorists."
... "Should Uncle Sam know as much about you as MasterCard does?" ... "In
essence, that may be the key question posed by the Pentagon's new Total
Information Awareness (TIA) project." ... "This effort - whose Latin motto
[Scientia Est Potentia] translates as "knowledge is power" - aims to create
huge databases that sift through the purchases, travel, immigration status,
income, and other data of hundreds of millions of Americans. Its purpose:
to sniff out the terrorists among us." ... ""There are three parts to the
TIA project," says Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition,
technology, and logistics." ... "The first part of the technology is voice
recognition, which would include sifting through electronically recorded
transmissions and provide rapid translations of foreign languages." ...
"The second part is to develop a tool that would discover connections between
transactions, such as passports, airline tickets, rental cars, gun or chemical
purchases, as well as arrests and other suspicious activities." ... "And
the third part is collaborative - a mechanism to allow information-and
analysis-sharing among agencies." ... ""If [the testing] proves useful,"
Mr. Aldridge says, "TIA will then be turned over to the intelligence, counterintelligence,
and law enforcement communities as a tool to help them in their battle
against domestic terrorism."" -By Faye Bowers and
Peter Grier
-CSMonitor/buy
20021109
TIA:
Total Information Awareness - -
"Pentagon
Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans."
... "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." ... "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." (1, 2)
-By John Markoff -NYTimes
via -LawMeme
20021017
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "DARPA
developing info awareness." ... "The Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency is developing a total information awareness system
to enable national security analysts to detect, classify, track, understand
and pre-empt terrorist attacks against the United States." ... "Total information
awareness incorporates transactional data systems, biometric authentication
technologies, intelligence data and automated virtual data repositories,
with the goal of creating an "end-to-end, closed-loop system," Popp said."
... "The office's budget for fiscal 2003 is about $150 million, up from
about $96 million last year, and a "significant amount" of that funding
is being spent on the total information awareness system, Popp said." -Dan
Caterinicchia
-FCW.com
20021011
- "Technology
Shapes Get-Out-The-Vote Efforts: Candidates,
Parties Using E-mail and Wireless Devices To Organize Supporters." ...
"Keenly aware that the role of the World Wide Web in the 2000 elections
fell far short of the hype, campaign consultants now are selling the Internet
less for its vote-getting power than as a command-and-control tool to reach
out to the faithful." ... ""The Internet is a medium that's best used to
preach to the choir, not to convert," said Dan Manatt, director of YDemsCan.net,
a Democratic political action committee that supports candidates aged 40
and younger. "The political landscape online is changing subtly in that
it's really starting to tilt toward the medium's strengths."" ... "In Iowa,
a state hosting several pivotal and tight races, both parties are counting
on technology to gain that extra edge." (1, 2)
-By Brian Krebs-WashingtonPost>TechNews
20020910
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "Terrorist-tracking
tools." ... "A controversial Defense Department counterterrorism
office created this year is moving ahead with plans to create terrorist-catching
technologies, amid concerns raised by civil-liberties groups about the
office's mission and its leader." ... "The Information Awareness Office—within
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's high-tech
idea factory—was created in February to develop technologies that can mine
private communications and commercial transactions looking for patterns
of behavior that might reveal terrorist activity, and to determine options
for dealing with it. The IAO's director is John Poindexter, a former national
security adviser to President Reagan." ... "Both the office's activities
and Poindexter's past have put civil-liberties advocates on edge. Poindexter,
who declined National Journal's request for an interview, was convicted
in 1990 of misleading and obstructing Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation,
a decision later overturned on appeal because immunized testimony had been
used to win the conviction. Also, during the 1980s Poindexter authored
a plan to put information about commercial computer security under military
jurisdiction and out of the public's reach." -By William
New, NationalJournal via
-GovExec.com
20020731
"Factiva
CEO: Surfers will pay for news." ... "The chief executive
of content-aggregating business Factiva says that Internet users will get
used to paying for content in the next couple of years." ... :"In order
for publishers to continue to pay journalists they're going to have to
start charging, and that's a good thing. Valuable information has a price,"
Hart told ZDNet Australia on a recent visit to Sydney." ... "Factiva, a
50:50 joint venture between Dow Jones and Reuters born in 1999, aggregates
8000 commercial sources and posts 120,000 new articles every day, of which
some customers might just want two or three articles that that are relevant
to them." -By Rachel Lebihan
-ZDNet.co.ukt>News
Operation_TIPS
- "Ashcroft
offers TIPS assurances." ... "Amid growing concern
over Operation TIPS, Ashcroft sought to assure members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee July 25 that reports of suspicious activity will not be retained
in a central database, but he said some reports may be kept in databases
maintained by various law enforcement agencies." ... "Ashcroft said he
advised against creating a database that would be maintained by Operation
TIPS, and "I have been given assurances that TIPS will not maintain a database."
But the FBI and other agencies might preserve TIPS reports in databases,
he said." -By William Matthews
-FCW.com
Operation_TIPS
- "Ashcroft:
TIPS Plan Won't Have Central Database: Anti-Terror
Information Will Be Passed On, He Tells Committee." ... ""We don't want
to see a 1984, Orwellian-type situation here where neighbors are reporting
on neighbors," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said during Ashcroft's testimony
yesterday." -By Dan Eggen-WashingtonPost
20020725
Operation_TIPS
- "Senators
Quiz Ashcroft on Citizen Watch Program." ... "While
Ashcroft said on Thursday he had recommended that the information not be
stored in any Justice Department database, earlier statements from the
department indicated the information would be kept in a database." -By
Niala Boodhoo -Reuters
via -Miami/Herald
20020724
Operation_TIPS
- "Buying
Trouble: Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror
Probe." ... "As John Ashcroft's Citizens Corps spy program prepares for
its debut next month, it seems scores of American companies have already
become willing snitches. A few months ago, the Privacy Council surveyed
executives from 22 companies in the travel industry—not just airlines but
hotels, car rental services, and travel agencies—and found that 64 percent
of respondents had turned over information to investigators and 59 percent
had lowered their resistance to such demands. In that sampling, conducted
with The Boston Globe, half of the businesses said they hadn't decided
if they'd inform customers of the change, and more than a third said outright
that they wouldn't. Only three said they would go public about the level
of their cooperation with law enforcement." -By Erik
Baard -VillageVoice
ed. 20020724-30
20020304
TIA:
Total Information Awareness -
- "Data
mining aims at national security." ... "In addition
to funding programs that will improve security in the open-source community,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is also in the midst of an
internal makeover." ... "The Information Awareness Office was formally
established in mid-January. Its mission is to develop and demonstrate information
technologies, such as data-mining tools, designed to counter "asymmetric
threats," such as terrorist attacks." ... "Another DARPA office created
in the aftermath of Sept. 11 is the Information Exploitation Office. Walker
said the office's mission is to develop sensors and systems with "application
to battle space awareness, targeting, command and control, and the supporting
infrastructure required to address land-based threats in a dynamic, closed-loop
process."" -By Dan Caterinicchia
-FCW.com
"A
Smarter Web: The Web is huge but not very smart.
Computer scientists are beginning to build a "Semantic Web" that understands
the meanings that underlie the tangle of information." ... "the ultimate
goal [dream;-] of the Semantic Web is to give users near omniscience over
the vast resources of the Internet, turning the millions of existing database
islands into a single gigantic database Pangea." (1,
2)
-By Mark Frauenfelder -TechnologyReview