Osama, R U there? http://www.redherring.com/article.aspx?a=10855&hed=Osama%2c+R+U+there%3f
The U.S. Intelligence Community funds ways to spy on chat rooms. September 17, 2004 Terrorists may be plotting online, but spooks don't have the time to sift through the chat room chatter. Spurred by the United States Intelligence Community, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded a six-figure grant to a computer science professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, to investigate a more sophisticated, self-monitoring means of spying on chat rooms. Not surprisingly, privacy advocates say the initiative is more evidence that the United States government's war on terror is impinging on the liberty of its citizens. And one chat room operator discounted the idea that Internet meeting places harbor terrorists as "nearly ridiculous.� Popular chat room operators AOL and Yahoo declined to comment for this story. As pedophiles and other criminals have learned the hard way, law enforcement officials regularly patrol chat rooms. But according to the NSF grant outline, detailing an anti-terrorist intelligence officer to lurk in online communities hoping to nail al Qaeda is not a wise use of time or money. Enter professor Bulent Yener, the recipient of the NSF grant titled �Surveillance, Analysis and Modeling of Chat Room Communities� � awarded under the NSF program Approaches to Combat Terrorism (ACT). Mr. Yener seems to be less interested in government surveillance and more into the structure of the Internet, or, how it works. Chat room chitchat is easy to obtain, but difficult to analyze, making it the perfect focus of his study, according to Mr. Yener. This grant, aimed at making chat room surveillance fully automated, is a good next step for research by Mr. Yener; he already has developed software for collecting data from chat rooms. After learning of the one-year, $157,673 chat room surveillance study grant that Mr. Yener will receive starting January 1, 2005, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse director Beth Givens expressed concern. �I worry about the oversight. How far and wide will the research be used? Where are the checks and balances? So far, I haven�t seen any.� She's also worried about an ongoing development of a �large interwoven structure of government intelligence, industry and academics� in an effort to spy on U.S. citizens. Crafty intelligence The U.S. Intelligence Community funds a large chunk of ACT research � nearly half. �We talk to the Intelligence Community and we ask them what areas they�d be interested in,� said Leland Jamison, ACT director. After coordinating with the Intelligence Community, ACT solicits research from the academic community, namely mathematics and physical science programs, including those of computer science. Less than half of ACT funding comes from the Intelligence Community, he said. Though the Intelligence Community is involved, all ACT research is unclassified. The catch is, ACT has no idea what the Intelligence Community does with their research. �We�d be the last to be able to tell. It would be up to them to pick it up. We�re there to help the process begin,� Mr. Jamison said. Both the CIA and the FBI declined to comment on the study specifically, but offered some other thoughts. �We don�t surf the Net looking for these types of things,� said FBI spokesperson Bill Carter on the topic of surveying chat rooms as a method to combat terrorism. He explained that the FBI would need indication of criminal or national security-related activity that would fall into the government organization�s jurisdiction. One example of an instance where the FBI would intervene: �If you have a group planning to blow up a building,� Mr. Carter said. �The CIA is aggressively pursuing terrorists,� said CIA spokesperson Anya Guilsher. But she officially declined to comment when asked about specific methodology and technology used in the war on terror. The grant outline describes chat rooms as being �particularly vulnerable for exploitation by malicious parties.� One excerpt from the grant offers a scenario where an �adversary (uses) a teenager chat room to plan a terrorist act.� This fictional example was discounted as �nearly ridiculous� by NetFX Media president Mike Brede. His company runs a popular teen chat room from his Teenspot Web site. �While I mentioned the scenario is farfetched, we still take jokes or pranks from our users surrounding terrorist activity seriously,� Mr. Brede said. �If our chat rooms are being 'watched' we are unaware. We have never been notified of such activity,� he added. �On a broad scale I'd say it's an invasion of privacy � we don't even monitor private chats. If there was a specific warrant then we would be obligated and happy to cooperate in any means we could,� Mr. Brede said. -- You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
