Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Seamless StarWars
William Arkin has been writing about the various government survelliance and data collection programs. Today he connects some dots, concluding that data mining is Bush's "star war program":
He [a friend/expert retired from the government data mining programs] cautions that I shouldn't get ahead of themselves worrying about an all-seeing government and a seamless surveillance culture. Billions are being secretly spent annually for software development, network infrastructure, database management, etc., to build a dreamed for system that will be able to autonomously connect the dots and detect terrorists before they strike. But a seamless system, my always reliable and level headed friend assures, is still far away.
Given government incompetence of late, it's no surprise that it's not up and running yet. In fact, Arkin's point is the like the star wars program, a comprehensive data mining system may be a pipe dream. We've spent over $130 billion on a failed star wars program to date. Will we spend a gazillion dollars on a failed comprehensive data mining program?

Unfortunately, even their failures are likely to be frightening. In fact, the fact that it doesn't work correctly may be one of the bigger dangers, i.e. targeting the wrong people and letting the bad guys get away. Arkin outlined 500 seperate government data collection programs in a column the other day. If they ever get their act together and connect all the dots, we're all in trouble .... even worse than we are now.
Written at 8:53 AM by Greyhair.
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