On Sunday, February 3, 2002, at 01:22 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote: >> "Theoretically, the system could be calibrated to watch for people with >> links to restaurants or other places thought to be favored by terrorist >> cells. It might also note phone calls and match individuals against > > Terrible. > > First they will just have to talk the terrorist out of using cash for > non-ticket purchases or into using cash for ticket purchases. > > Otherwise, some really devious terrorist may use traceable payment > instruments > only for benign purposes (see "Creating a profile" chapter) and for > that final > ticket purchase, while paying with cash everything else. > > Could it just be that this current War on something will be used, as all > previous Wars on something, to eradicate cash ?
And how will they get the records from restaurants? (Ditto for the other "data mining" inputs, most of which are from private persons, companies, or organizations.) Subpoena of specific person records will not generate the data mining raw data they want. Even in our headlong rush to a surveillance state, I don't see restaurants and bookstores turning over information on this kind of scale. (Which leaves us with the credit card companies. Maybe FINCEN and DOJ can get specific records, but, again, the kind of terabytes per day of raw data to feed the data harvesters will not be easy to get. Unless the several credit reporting agencies elect to help Big Brother on a massive scale. We should be on the watch for this.) --Tim May "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists." --John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General
