Most Disturbing Yet - Senate Wants Database Dragnet

[Sunder]

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65242,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,65242,00.html

Senate Wants Database Dragnet 

By Ryan Singel  

02:00 AM Oct. 06, 2004 PT

The Senate could pass a bill as early as Wednesday evening that would let 
government counter-terrorist investigators instantly query a massive 
system of interconnected commercial and government databases that hold 
billions of records on Americans.

The proposed network is based on the Markle Foundation Task Force's 
December 2003 report, which envisioned a system that would allow FBI and 
CIA agents, as well as police officers and some companies, to quickly 
search intelligence, criminal and commercial databases. The proposal is so 
radical, the bill allocates $50 million just to fund the system's 
specifications and privacy policies. 

<SNIP>

To prevent abuses of the system, the Markle task force recommended 
anonymized technology, graduated levels of permission-based access and 
automated auditing software constantly hunting for abuses.

{Huh?  How would anonimized access PREVENT abuses?}

An appendix to the report went so far as to suggest that the system should 
"identify known associates of the terrorist suspect, within 30 seconds, 
using shared addressees, records of phone calls to and from the suspect's 
phone, e-mails to and from the suspect's accounts, financial transactions, 
travel history and reservations, and common memberships in organizations, 
including (with appropriate safeguards) religious and expressive 
organizations."

<SNIP>



----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---------------------------
 + ^ + :"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.  /|\
  \|/  :They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country /\|/\
<--*-->:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/
  /|\  :                                                             \|/
 + v + :    War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President.
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