[IP] Critics Say Defense 'Total Information Awareness' Impractical

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Will Doherty <wild@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:01:04 -0800
To: eff-priv@eff.org
Subject: [E-PRV]Fwd: FEN: [News] Critics Say Defense 'Total Information
Awareness' Impractical


>http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/121202h1.htm
>
>December 12, 2002
>
>By Shane Harris
>Govexec.com
>
>Critics Say Defense 'Total Information Awareness' Impractical
>
>Security advocates and technology experts threw cold water on a
>controversial Defense Department plan to create a new counterterrorism
>system that would use information technology to sniff out clues to a
>possible terrorist assault and identify attackers before they strike. The
>critics said the system, currently being researched by the Pentagon, would
>violate civil liberties, undermine commerce and probably wouldn't work.
>
>Charles Peña, a policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute in
>Washington, said it's statistically unlikely that the system could predict
>and pre-empt attacks and also avoid targeting innocent people as suspected
>terrorists. He said that if the system-which theoretically would analyze
>relationships among transactions such as credit card or airline ticket
>purchases-were applied to the entire population, almost as many people would
>incorrectly be identified as terror plotters as would be correctly fingered.
>That scenario would make the technology useless, said Peña, who argued
>against spending millions of dollars to develop it.
>
>The Total Information Awareness (TIA) system is managed by the Defense
>Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's main research and
>development unit. It would use data retrieval, biometric identification and
>other technologies to analyze information in databases. DARPA has not yet
>said what databases would be searched, but controversy has engulfed the
>project amid fears that private purchases and travel patterns might become
>the subject of government inspection.
>
>Peña, delivered his remarks Thursday at a briefing about the project for
>congressional staff members and journalists. He was joined by civil
>libertarians who derided the Pentagon's work as another in a growing list of
>excessive encroachments upon privacy and due process undertaken by the Bush
>administration since the Sept. 11 attacks.
>
>Bob Levy, a Cato senior fellow, called upon officials to define the scope of
>the TIA system and to set limits on what it would collect, whom it would
>monitor and what people would have access to its data. Levy feared that
>without such clarification, the system could result in expansions of
>domestic enforcement surveillance and limitations on privacy rights already
>permitted by post-Sept. 11 legislation and executive actions.
>
>Wayne Crews, Cato's director of technology policy studies, also said the TIA
>system could undermine electronic commerce, because business today is
>predicated on the sanctity of privately owned databases. He worried that if
>companies were forced to submit their databases to inspection by the system,
>the customer's assumption of privacy would be assailed.
>
>The TIA system project is managed by former National Security Adviser John
>Poindexter, who was convicted after the Iran-Contra scandal on felony counts
>of lying to Congress. That conviction was overturned. Poindexter hatched the
>idea for the system and was hired by DARPA earlier this year on a contract
>basis to oversee it.
>
>Levy echoed the concerns of many critics that Poindexter shouldn't be in
>charge of such a potentially sensitive national security tool, given his
>history of making false public statements. "The concern is not that
>[Poindexter] is not the right man for the job. The problem is that he may be
>the right man," Levy said.
>
>Peña, said the administration's best public relations move would be, at
>least, to replace Poindexter with another manager.
>
>Poindexter has repeatedly refused to grant interviews to the news media.
>However, his deputy, Robert Popp, has spoken to journalists and at public
>gatherings. He has emphasized that DARPA isn't building a machine to search
>information, but is testing the technological viability of the concept using
>fictional or legally obtained data. Additionally, Popp said, the agency is
>building privacy protections into the system's design, looking for ways to
>encrypt data so that only authorized people could see the name of a person
>associated with a piece of information.
>
>Once DARPA's research is complete-probably in about three years-the agency
>would share the plans with agencies interested in using the system, Popp
>said. Likely interested parties would include the CIA, FBI, Homeland
>Security Department and National Security Agency.
>
>sharris@govexec.com
>
>
>

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