Post by Mech on Jun 10, 2004 17:27:00 GMT -5
Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7
Captol Hill Blue
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
Jun 7, 2004, 00:34
Customers of the Bank of America branch at 3625 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, often wonder about the Arlington police car that is always parked in front of the building in the next block.
They also can't help but notice the two armed guards from the private Cantwell Security Service who patrol the street in front of the building and eye each passerby warily.
“What's going on across the street?” one woman asked while waiting in line to deposit her paycheck last Friday.
“Not sure,” said the man ahead of her in line. “Something to do with the government. The police cars and guards have been there since shortly after 9-11.”
“Oh,” she said. “No matter.”
Actually, if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive, she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness Program, the “big brother” program Congress thought it killed.
When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute.
Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program's controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA's TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag' account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don't require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”
DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen.
DARPA moved into the Arlington County building shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and established the TIA project under the USA Patriot Act and a number of executive orders from President George W. Bush.
TIA's mission was to build a giant computer database with real time access to bank records, credit card companies, airlines and other travel companies, credit bureaus and other data banks to monitor, in real time, the financial transactions and travel of Americans and foreign citizens with accounts at the institutions.
Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the banks and other companies were forced to allow DARPA to access their files, a move normally considered an invasion of privacy.
When news of TIA first surfaced in 2002, along with the appointment of Poindexter, a key-figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, as director, citizens' watchdog groups and some members of Congress took a second look. The uproar that followed led to the resignation of Poindexter, who had lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation, and the elimination of funding for TIA.
But Congress left the door open by supplying DARPA with research funding to develop data mining alternatives to TIA. Instead, the Bush administration instructed the Pentagon to move TIA into the convert area of black bag operations and Congress was cut out of the loop.
Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.
“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”
The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.
“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person's spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.
Such data mining is also called “database profiling” and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment's guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Steinhardt points out the information is already being used to create “no fly” lists of people who are thought to be a danger but that safeguards are not in place to insure the accuracy of the information.
“Once you get on a ‘no-fly' list, how do you get off it?” Steinhardt asks.
Missouri Congressman William Clay, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations, worries that DARPA is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.
Captol Hill Blue
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
Jun 7, 2004, 00:34
Customers of the Bank of America branch at 3625 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, often wonder about the Arlington police car that is always parked in front of the building in the next block.
They also can't help but notice the two armed guards from the private Cantwell Security Service who patrol the street in front of the building and eye each passerby warily.
“What's going on across the street?” one woman asked while waiting in line to deposit her paycheck last Friday.
“Not sure,” said the man ahead of her in line. “Something to do with the government. The police cars and guards have been there since shortly after 9-11.”
“Oh,” she said. “No matter.”
Actually, if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive, she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness Program, the “big brother” program Congress thought it killed.
When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute.
Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program's controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA's TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag' account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don't require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”
DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen.
DARPA moved into the Arlington County building shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and established the TIA project under the USA Patriot Act and a number of executive orders from President George W. Bush.
TIA's mission was to build a giant computer database with real time access to bank records, credit card companies, airlines and other travel companies, credit bureaus and other data banks to monitor, in real time, the financial transactions and travel of Americans and foreign citizens with accounts at the institutions.
Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the banks and other companies were forced to allow DARPA to access their files, a move normally considered an invasion of privacy.
When news of TIA first surfaced in 2002, along with the appointment of Poindexter, a key-figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, as director, citizens' watchdog groups and some members of Congress took a second look. The uproar that followed led to the resignation of Poindexter, who had lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation, and the elimination of funding for TIA.
But Congress left the door open by supplying DARPA with research funding to develop data mining alternatives to TIA. Instead, the Bush administration instructed the Pentagon to move TIA into the convert area of black bag operations and Congress was cut out of the loop.
Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.
“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”
The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.
“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person's spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.
Such data mining is also called “database profiling” and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment's guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Steinhardt points out the information is already being used to create “no fly” lists of people who are thought to be a danger but that safeguards are not in place to insure the accuracy of the information.
“Once you get on a ‘no-fly' list, how do you get off it?” Steinhardt asks.
Missouri Congressman William Clay, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations, worries that DARPA is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.