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Information Article |
Justin Perry and Ronald Fife |
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Examination of the
Issues Many people, inside and outside of government, believe that data mining programs are necessary in order for the government to fight the increasing threat of terrorism. At the same time many, inside and outside of government, claim that these programs would invade privacy and give the government too much power over its citizens. The arguments on both sides of this issue have validity. The threat of terrorism is significant and insidious. Americans expect that their government will do everything in its power to provide security. The government needs to be able to determine who may be involved in terrorist activities before an attack is carried out. An efficient way of accomplishing this would be to gather and analyze information that is available in electronic records. The government could look for patterns in a variety of records and single out individuals who might be involved in terrorism. Records from public and private sources could be used to examine things such as which Web sites a person visits and which books a person buys from bookstores or borrows from libraries. Many other personal records could be examined including “…financial, medical, educational, telephone, and travel records …” (Simons). Statistical analysis and other data mining techniques could be used to determine who may be a terrorist. Potential terrorists could be flagged and further measures taken to protect this country from them. Supporters assert that unless such a program is implemented, the government will lack the information it needs to fight terrorism. The well known journalist, Heather MacDonald, expressed similar arguments as other supporters of the Terrorism Information Awareness Program. She maintains that those who are afraid are just being paranoid and do not realize that privacy protections have been put in place (MacDonald). One point MacDonald makes is that the program would not have linked individual names to the pattern analysis: An analyst could query, for example, whether anyone had bought
unusually large quantities of bomb-making chemicals and rented a large truck
recently. The program might say yes, such a pattern had occurred, but it
would not reveal the names of the people pursuing it unless the disclosure
were approved by a judge or other legal authority. (MacDonald) Homeland-security consultants explain that the fears are unjustified: Contrary to hysterical reports emanating from the right and left, the
project did not aim to create a dossier on every American. Indeed, while it
would have provided Proponents also point out that businesses collect much of the information that is required by these intelligence programs, but are not using it in the war on terror (Garrett). If people trust business with this information it is questionable that they would not trust the government. Advances in data mining technology and the expansion of its uses are inevitable and if anyone should be in charge, it should be the government. If proper safeguards are put in place, then there is no reason to fear that the information will be used to abuse citizens. Some might also suggest that if people have nothing to hide, then there is nothing to fear. It could be argued that if people are aware that their actions could be monitored, it might compel them to change their behavior and act within moral and legal boundaries. The changes in behavior could help uplift individuals and create better citizens. Privacy advocates point out the scale and variety of information gathered gives the government too much power. The government might be tempted to use this information for purposes beyond the pursuit of terrorism. Many examples can be cited where information gathered by the government has been used outside of its intended purpose. One example involves how census records where used to find Japanese Americans during World War Two and inter them in concentration camps. The truth that the Terrorism Information Awareness Program was slipped into the Patriot Act without the knowledge of many of the Congressmen who passed the bill underscores the conviction that the Department of Defense would have preferred to commit this type of surveillance in secret. This reminds people of the secret surveillance that was conducted in the past on such notable figures as Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. The Department of Defense would have preferred to keep knowledge of which records it would have gathered with the program in secret. Many people fear that the information gathered could have been used for political purposes or as a way to categorize and oppress citizens. Awareness of the monitoring activities by programs like the Terrorism Information Program might cause people to change their behavior. This could affect their freedom to act as they would under normal circumstances. The terrorists could also adapt. The U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery describes a possible scenario: The existence of TIA would impact the behavior of both real terrorists and law-abiding individuals. Real terrorists are likely to go to great lengths to make certain that their behavior is statistically ‘normal,’ and ordinary people are likely to avoid perfectly lawful behavior out of fear of being labeled “Un-American.” (Simons) The scale and complexity of such data mining activities make addressing responsibility and accountability concerns difficult. Who is responsible for the integrity of such systems and accountable for failures in such a massive enterprise becomes difficult to pin point. The drastic consequences of failure do to errors in the data or security breeches require assurance that such programs can be manageable. Records collected on any individual or group would come from many sources and different systems complicating the development of collection systems and increasing the likelihood of errors. Erroneous data would be disseminated throughout many systems in various government agencies and distort the analysis models that rely on it. This magnification of errors makes it difficult to assign responsibility for correcting them and ensuring against them. The consequences of errors undetected or uncorrected include the fear that innocent people might be flagged as terrorists and spirited off without due process. The potential for security breeches is another serious concern. The value of such comprehensive data makes these systems attractive targets for criminals and even terrorists. Protection from misuse by authorized users would be a daunting management task. The U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery’s letter to congress reveals the magnitude of potential risks from inside: [T]ens of thousands of systems administrators, domestic law enforcement staff, and intelligence personnel will be able to access the data; the security of the data will depend on the trustworthiness of every one of them. (Simons) Research and development of the various components of such programs has been contracted with many universities and businesses. The integrity of these programs may also depend on the practices of these organizations. Questions have been raised about who
actually owns the data. Economic concerns over rights to the data have been
raised. Business leaders have expressed concerns that if they give their
customer’s information to the government, they might lose customer loyalty (Delio). European privacy policies
are stricter than in the For example, a European Union subsidiary of a |
