Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 10:24:51 -0500
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: Military survelliance program aims to detect biowar attack
*******
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2671596,00.html
Catching The Bug Before It Kills
By Doug Brown, Interactive Week
January 7, 2001 7:26 PM ET
Web sites and a broad sweep of electronic databases are being targeted by
the military for a vast surveillance project aimed at detecting incidents
of bio-terrorism before it's too late. [...]
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Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 22:58:56 -0500
Message-Id: <200101092258.AA586350668@mail.cipherwar.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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From: " Scully@cipherwar.com" <Scully@mail.cipherwar.com>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: DARPA's new Bio-Surveillance program
URL: http://cipherwar.com/news/01/darpa_baa0117.htm
BAA 01-17: A Biological Defense System or an Infringement of Privacy?
....Jan.10.2001
In addition to the usual threats against the United States' national
security, a relatively new threat has arisen - the threat of biological
terrorism. There have already been attacks using biological agents in
other countries and possibly against the US military but these have been
on relatively small scales. The possibility of a nation-wide or even
global attack is made possible by the relatively small doses of the agent
needed, the communicability of the resulting disease and the misdiagnosis
of disease as either the common cold or flu. For a comprehensive report
regarding the threat of biological terrorism and especially that of
anthrax, please read Cipherwar's article, entitled, "Anthrax: Are We
Prepared" by visiting http://www.cipherwar.com/news/00/anthrax_meta4.htm .
To address this growing threat, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office (ISO) has issued a Broad Agency
Announcement (BAA) to solicit research proposals for a Bio-Surveillance
System project designated BAA 01-17. The initial proposal was published
December 27, 2000 in conjunction with a relatively detailed fact sheet. A
final report is currently being prepared by personnel at DARPA and is said
to be available shortly. The article that follows is not complete but
includes all the information that is currently available. Stay tuned in
the coming months for updates as they become available.
The main objective of this Bio-Surveillance program is to mine information
from non-traditional sources in the hope that the combination of
information will alert officials to a biological attack faster than would
be possible relying solely on diagnoses made by medical personnel. Due to
the fact that several infections with biological agents manifest
themselves with initial symptoms resembling those of the flu or the common
cold, the possibility that a terrorist attack could go unnoticed for a
lengthy period of time is one of the biggest dangers associated with such
an attack.
As time passes, those infected with the biological agent die and the
disease can continue to spread throughout the population without any
treatment, quarantine or vaccination systems intact. Traditional disease
surveillance has relied upon the watchful eye of medical professionals who
recognize a disease, order the appropriate tests to confirm or refute the
diagnosis and take the appropriate course of action to treat the illness.
However, during the aftermath of a terrorist attack, the inherent delays
in the lengthy process of diagnosis would result in countless deaths.
A typical theoretical example follows. Within 24 hours following anthrax
infection, an individual begins to feel flu-like symptoms. If the infected
person actually visits a doctor and if the doctor does not know that there
has been a release of anthrax into the environment, the doctor would
diagnose the person as having the flu and send them home. Meanwhile, the
individual becomes sicker and sicker and soon becomes refractory to
antibiotics designed to treat anthrax. There is a short window of time
that the medication will actually work and once past that, the infected
individual has a 99% chance of dying. Thus, with the aid of a surveillance
system, the epic results of a biological terrorist attack could be
minimized by detecting the attack and taking appropriate measures before
many lives are lost.
DARPA, in support of their proposal says that "surveillance for covert
biological warfare and biological terrorist activities is needed to
counter the threat. If an event occurs, surveillance is needed to identify
the presence of the pathogen or the initial indicators of disease as soon
as possible so that a rapid response can be implemented." In fact, DARPA
conducted a simulated project that showed that with proper
bio-surveillance, an abnormal health event caused by a terrorist attack
could be detected days before identification by the medical community.
These critical days could save an entire city's population.
The Bio-Surveillance system will collect data from grocery stores' sales,
pharmacy databases, school absentee databases, animal surveillance
networks, veterinarian and health care records, and apply the information
to an abnormal disease detection algorithm that will be able to identify a
biological attack.
The Bio-Surveillance System program intends to demonstrate that it is
feasible to 1) develop an integrated system using diverse military,
government (federal, state and local) and commercial databases from
geographically dispersed locations, 2) glean applicable data from these
databases while maintaining patient privacy privileges, 3) analyze the
data to discern abnormal biological events from normal epidemiology
patterns and 4) provide alerts to the appropriate DOD emergency response
infrastructure.
BAA 01-17 is only in the initial planning stages. DARPA holds lofty goals
for their proposed surveillance system.
The vision for the Bio-Surveillance Project is to develop the information
technology necessary to alert the DOD of any clandestine bio-agent release
within the CONUS, in time for adequate response. The envisioned network
would gather and integrate information from non-traditional health
information sources...and state-of-the-art bio-sensors for a city with a
large DOD population. The system would support real-time epidemiological
analysis and autonomous alerts of any anomalous or unusual health event in
the DOD military or civilian population. Once a possible anomalous event
is detected, the system would provide the capability for a medical expert
to quickly analyze the possible cause and isolate the infected population
for timely treatment.
As for money, $24 million of taxpayers' money will fund the five-year
DARPA project that will be a system to protect primarily Department of
Defense military and civilian personnel. What about the rest of the public?
The United States and its allies need some sort of counter to the very
real threat of biological terrorism. However, is the development of yet
another public surveillance program really the answer? Especially a public
surveillance program that holds as its primary objective to protect DoD
military and civilian personnel? Over the recent years, a few undercover
surveillance programs have been discovered and people in general seem
appalled at the notion that they are under the watchful eye of Big
Brother. BAA 01-17 may become the first "publicly-acknowledged"
surveillance system, one that is known about while it is in action.
Combing the currently available information on the Bio-Surveillance
System, there is very little mentioned about protecting the public's
privacy. Perhaps the issue of privacy is a lower priority or even an
afterthought to protecting the nation and especially DoD employees from a
terrorist attack. We should be weary of such a system and approach it with
extr!
eme caution.
Contributed by meta4@cipherwar.com
For More Information:
http://www.darpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01-17..htm
Sources:
http://www.arpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01_17faq.html
http://www.darpa.mil/baa/BAA01-17.htm
http://www.darpa.mil/iso/bios/baa01-17..htm
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2671596,00.html
--
Founder
Cipherwar: Information Warfare for Free Thinkers
http://www.Cipherwar.com
--
Declan McCullagh