Since terrorism is ideologically based, anyone is a potential terrorist.
"The threat of terrorism is an inescapable reality of life in the 21st
century. It is a permanent condition to which America and the entire world
must adjust. The need for homeland security, therefore, is not tied to any
specific terrorist threat."
The Premier and Police Minister of NSW want Homeland security,if you have
nothing to hide then YOU want it to.
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=23217&group=webcast
--"Securing the Homeland, Strengthening the Nation" presidential report
Many people say the intelligence agencies should have known about Sept. 11
before it happened.
Some go further and contend the intelligence bureaucracy should always know
in advance when something is going to happen. Analysts call this predictive
capability an "Indications and Warning" system, although no one has ever
come close to building anything this broad in scope.
Some might also say that's a laughable idea. But as a former intelligence
analyst and information retrieval expert, I thought it might be interesting
to spec one out for you. You never know until you try, right?
Connect existing government and commercial databases.
Let's start by connecting most of the large government databases that
contain information on domestic activity, including those containing
customs, immigration, law enforcement, military and Internal Revenue
Service files. The network would eventually include state and local tax
rolls, political contribution lists, and educational and voting records.
In the short term, the government would build software that translates
queries between the various databases (since its current information
systems are the digital version of the Tower of Babel). A permanent
solution would be to create rigid requirements forcing all agencies and
contractors to converge around a common set of standards for data storage
and access.
Contractors would eventually write translation gateways into many
commercial databases so that searches against the government database could
be seamlessly integrated. Some of these commercial databases would be
straightforward, containing data such as credit reports, phone and other
utility bills, and transportation/reservation information from airlines,
rental car companies and hotels. Others might be more subjective and
involve human appraisals such as profiled direct-marketing lists, school
guidance counselor records and comments made by utility or government workers.
Match them to commercial information such as credit reports (using social
security numbers).
Initially, translation systems would be "data-matched" against government
records. The government would eventually mandate that all commercial
databases include a field for social security numbers. This would likely
result in legislation making it a crime for consumers to give false social
security numbers to companies. It might even require these companies to
deny service to the curmudgeons who still refused to provide that information.
This system would eventually access tens of millions of real-time sensors
for up-to-the-minute threat assessment.
Add tens of millions of cameras and other sensors.
This system would eventually access tens of millions of real-time sensors
for up-to-the-minute threat assessment. This process of adding sensors is
already underway at several different agencies. These sensors include
visual cameras at various public places, such as storefronts, street
corners, highways, toll roads and airports. Some already rely on
experimental face-recognition software. Other sensors would include
identification devices at checkpoints in public buildings and eventually in
all transportation terminals.
Require national ID cards and tie them to a biometric database.
These devices would require some sort of universal identification card that
carries biometric information. The biometrics could include fingerprints,
retinal scans, face measurements, blood types and DNA. (The military is
already collecting DNA information to facilitate body identification.) Of
course, this would require a national ID card and, even more importantly, a
universal database of biometric information; otherwise it would be useless.
The easiest way to build up this database is to collect the information
from schoolchildren. An alternative method would be to link the biometric
collection to draft registration for citizens and to visa issuance for
resident aliens.
Track phone calls and e-mail, and generate diagrams of social groupings
using traffic analysis.
An important element of a predictive system would be the gathering of
information on social interactions and on "networks" of individuals who
communicate as a group. Intelligence analysts refer to this process as
"traffic analysis." Expansion of the Carnivore/DCS-1000 program to
encompass most Internet-based communications, used together with records of
phone transactions, should provide enough information.
Naturally, detailed analysis will also require the content of the
conversations. Since the system will have to reconstruct activity after the
fact, this implies that all communication from all Internet users will have
to be stored.
Build technology that will "guess" what people are thinking and predict
what they might do.
Since terrorism is ideologically based, anyone is a potential terrorist.
Under this proposed system, then, everyone's actions would have to be under
constant scrutiny. But the biggest problem with large-scale information
systems is figuring out what's important in the data that's being stored.
Since terrorism is ideologically based, anyone is a potential terrorist.
Since this is a threat-assessment system, it would deploy a so-called
heuristic processing, or rules-based analysis, similar to what's used by
credit scoring systems to determine consumer creditworthiness. But the
terrorist-profiling system would have much more sophisticated and
insightful rules, crafted by psychologists, and would have much more data
to work with. It would look for ideological leanings, as demonstrated by
choice of reading material, organization memberships and friends, or
psychological disturbances, as evidenced by behavioral changes such as a
sudden switch in grocery-buying habits.
Researchers would be free to experiment with many types of correlations of
individual behavior--such as dietary habits, travel behavior and social
grouping--to determine the best way to assess the threat-potential of
everyone, Americans and aliens alike.
Give everyone a secret threat score or loyalty rating.
Since millions of government workers need access to these threat
profiles--and most will not be trained in the nuances of interpreting
psychological information--threat scores similar to credit scores are the
most useful way to display the results of these profiles. In this way, any
government employee with access to the system could look up a person's
threat score based on their social security number, driver's license or
immigration visa number.
In the screensaver, looking out at the fish...
People may get used to the cameras, but threat profiling will cause them to
make lifestyle adjustments. We've become accustomed to the idea that our
credit report can affect our chances of getting a job, renting an apartment
or buying a car. The threat score would serve the same function in all of
our interactions with government employees.
As this Predictive Data Security System threat profiling develops, people
will quickly find out what kind of behavior will draw attention and what's
safe. They might avoid certain books and take extra-special care to find
out the background and opinions of their friends, colleagues and employees.
If a person unfortunately gets a high threat score--perhaps because of
something that one of their friends or family said--they might reduce that
score through some socially useful action such as providing information on
one of their neighbors.
