Poindexter: Finding the Face of Terror in Data (NY Times OP-ED)

[BlueEyedSon]

The amount of data available to the federal government far exceeds the human capacity to analyze it. This has long been the case, but since 9/11 the need for better tools to help America fight the war against terror has become more urgent. Unfortunately, the Senate appears set to cancel financing for a promising and innovative set of technology programs that would help make America safe.

In January 2002 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is part of the Defense Department, established an Information Awareness Office to focus on technologies to help counter terrorism. We established a new research and development program, now called the Terrorism Information Awareness program, to test ways to find information faster, share information across agencies, aid in conducting analysis and enable better decision-making. The goal is to help the government "connect the dots" and prevent foreign terrorist attacks.

etc...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/opinion/10POIN.html

Check this bio:
John M. Poindexter resigned last month as director of the Information Awareness Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

[demnan]

1. I'll probably be flamed for this but

I've worked on programs like these and my take was about the same as he states. The only data we dealt with was for people who had committed a crime. We built tools to assist law enforcement agents in tracking criminals and trends.

Had we looked at a larger slice of data than we did, and with some of the web programs I helped develop, and with the use of data mining tools, we probably could have helped our customers to implicate the terrorists who hijacked the airplanes on 9/11. (This was before 9/11 and actually was for an initiative for Janet Reno, then Attorney General but we looked at government databases). I can't really say specifically more than that.

Poindexter is a Watergate criminal, but don't necessarily assume that the stuff DARPA does has bad motives. Only an arrogant bastard like Bush would put a man with Poindexter's past in an important office like this.

I'm sure Ashcroft threw out all the initiatives Reno developed when he came in, now they are having to rebuild the whole system.

on edit: minor grammar correction

[punpirate]

2. There are fundamental issues here...

... that Poindexter is _not_ entitled to address. I will not make the assumption that a man who has such disdain for the law and Constitutional process has the interests of the public at heart in this matter, or any other of public interest.

You may have worked on projects such as this, but I doubt seriously if you were working with Constitutional scholars as you did so, each step of the way. Technology (as much as I am enamored of it) destroys as often as it builds (but always with the best of intentions).

There are some things best left alone.

The government, on September 10, 2001, by the conventional means it had available, had all the knowledge necessary to prevent a terrorist attack, but failed to do so. The generous view is that the government was incompetent. A smart computer program does not make stupid people more intelligent. But, it can make intelligent people with perverse political motives more dangerous--not to terrorists, but, rather, to us.

DARPA, by the way, is also supporting research on cyborg-soldiers. Does that work toward peace, or encourage war? Does it humanize or dehumanize our soldiers? Is such a clear path to a peaceful world? Only in the most twisted notions of peace.

Enter Mr. Poindexter and his ilk.

Cheers.