NP? snitch culture algorithms/Vineland echo

[Paul Mackin]

Yeah, I certainly understand the revulsion people feel about being in
someone's--especially the govenment's--computer.  However this broad
probablity approach to identifying terrorists apparently isn't going anywhere
afterall--not primarily because of civil liberties and privacy considerations
I would guess but based on  just plain impracticality.  It won't work. The
ability to statistically pin down a manageable number of likely suspects out
of hundreds of millions simply does not exist.  Someone was sold a bill of
goods.  The FBI had been severely criticized for being too weak in the
computer department. Bob Hanssen made this charge and the VV article calls the
FBI luddite. So don't just stand there, Bush Administration, DO SOMETHING.

 Don't worry. Continue to order pizza and pay by credit card.  Unless of
course you're a young male with a middle eastern complexion living with other
similar types. In such case the FBI (without computers) will be on you even if
you hate Pizza. That is the SAD part.

P.







Doug Millison wrote:

> http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0230/baard.php
> "As John Ashcroft's Citizens Corps spy program prepares for its debut next
> month, it seems scores of American companies have already become willing
> snitches. A few months ago, the Privacy Council surveyed executives from 22
> companies in the travel industry-not just airlines but hotels, car rental
> services, and travel agencies-and found that 64 percent of respondents had
> turned over information to investigators and 59 percent had lowered their
> resistance to such demands. In that sampling, conducted with The Boston
> Globe, half of the businesses said they hadn't decided if they'd inform
> customers of the change, and more than a third said outright that they
> wouldn't. Only three said they would go public about the level of their
> cooperation with law enforcement.  The final destination of all that data
> scares Ponemon and other civil libertarians, defenders of the Fourth
> Amendment prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure. onemon, for one,
> suggests federal authorities are plugging the information into algorithms,
> using the complex formulas to create a picture of general-population trends
> that can be contrasted with the lifestyles of known terrorists. If your
> habits match, expect further scrutiny at the least.
>
> "I can't reveal my source, but a federal agency involved in espionage
> actually did a rating system of almost every citizen in this country,"
> Ponemon claims. "It was based on all sorts of information-public sources,
> private sources. If people are not opted in"-meaning they haven't chosen to
> participate-"one can generally assume that information was gathered through
> an illegal system."  After crunching those numbers through the algorithm,
> he says, its creators fed in the files of the 9-11 terrorists as a test.
> "The model showed 89.7 percent accuracy 'predicting' these people from rest
> of population," Ponemon reports. [...]  "I am not a number!" shouted
> Patrick McGoohan, star of the British TV show The Prisoner, when he
> rejected life in an idyllic village where he was held and constantly
> monitored. "I am a free man." Now that this nation is at war with terror,
> perhaps you'll remain free as long as your "Potential Terrorist Quotient"
> remains low enough. "
>
> "Someplace there would be a real ax, or something just as painful, Jasonic,
> blade-to-meat final -- but at the distance she, Flash, and Justin had by
> now been brought to, it would all be done with keys on alphanumeric
> keyboards that stood for weightless, invisible chains of electronic
> presence or absence."  (Vineland, 90)
> "