Actionable
Intelligence
Three
decades ago, an investigation was led by Senator Frank Church
(D-Idaho) which shed light on the US government's murky history
of domestic spying operations. After conducting hundreds of interviews
and examining thousands of documents, the Church Commission discovered
that a myriad of government agencies-including the FBI and CIA-had
used extensive amounts of surveillance to undermine the actions
of law-abiding citizens. An FBI counterintelligence operation
called COINTELPRO even sent letters to the spouses of political
dissidents that were designed to disrupt marriages. Private information
on the lives of civil rights activists was leaked in attempts
to disrupt their efforts. The commission's findings provoked public
outrage resulting in the creation of a series of laws including
the Privacy Protection Act of 1974. These reforms gave individuals
the right to know and correct the information being collected
on their activities. For years these regulations have protected
our ability to maintain personal lives, but now, in the wake of
a data revolution and in the midst of a "War on Terror,"
they have been rendered obsolete.
Virtual
Comets
The problem
is that we are all constantly awash in a digital sea. Robert O'Harrow
Jr., a reporter for the Washington Post and author of the book
"No Place to Hide," likens us to "virtual comets
in cyberspace
[leaving behind] huge trails of electronic
information." Every time you surf the web, send an email,
make a purchase with plastic, drive through an electronic toll
booth, ride a train or airplane, buy a house or car, fill out
customer information, get a prescription, or make a call from
your cell phone, information is left behind that is recorded and
stored-in many cases indefinitely. All of these types of interactions
are then combined and cross-referenced with other public and private
records, including DMV and voter registration information, social
security and tax reports, medical and insurance records, as well
as criminal records. The result is private corporations now have
some of your most intimate details at their finger tips, from
the type of books you read to the names and ages of your children,
and they're anxious to sell them to anyone able to pay top dollar.
The collection
of this type of information isn't new-by the early sixties some
250 assorted businesses began brokering any personal details they
could acquire. At first their purposes seemed mostly benign. Companies
wanted information on consumer preference in order to better market
products, while lenders and insurers were interested in financial
track records in order to eliminate the chance of working with
high-risk individuals. By 1964 various organizations and businesses
were spending $400 million each year to obtain personal information.
Fast-forward to the early nineties. With the advent of the internet
and the explosive advances in data storage that were occurring,
everyone was jumping onto the information-age bandwagon.
Companies with
names like Acxiom, ChoicePoint, and LexisNexis, began gobbling
up credit agencies, direct mailers, phone directories, and other
record sources. With each merger the ability to create dossiers
on average citizens became more fine-tuned. Soon, developers of
artificial intelligence software were brought on board. This gave
these companies the ability to automatically analyze billions
of records, constantly on the lookout for patterns and anomalies
in order to predict what an individual is likely to do. It was
now possible to instantaneously find links between people, and
generate large lists of persons meeting very specific criteria.
Want a list of everyone who purchased sex toys in a certain geographic
area? Piece of cake. Need to know who is taking a type of prescribed
medication? No problem. Now that these companies had the ability
to scrutinize your every action, they lay dormant, eagerly awaiting
an opportunity to begin selling their services to government agencies.
The
Aftermath
The slumbering
behemoth of the Surveillance-Industrial complex was awakened abruptly
when the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center on September
11th. Civil libertarians braced themselves for the backlash against
privacy protections that was bound to occur, but there was nothing
they could do to stop the fear-based reactionary impulses at work
in Washington. The Patriot Act was passed in October of 2001,
and the repressive legislation opened the floodgates of potential
abuse that had been held at bay for so long. Section 215 of the
bill allows the government to obtain records from any business
with no probable cause required. The solution in the mind of the
administration was clear: as long as the private sector gathered
the information, there would be almost no oversight on what kind
of data could be obtained.
A man named
John Poindexter, who had been forced out of the government for
years due to his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, worked
with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to
create a new office known as Total Information Awareness (TIA).
After its opening in January 2002, the goal of TIA was to tap
into the vast reservoir of new surveillance technologies in order
to sense terrorist attacks before they occur. The scope was nothing
less than massive. The ambitious new office sought to keep track
of everything that occurred in cyberspace and constantly check
for actions considered to be warning signs of terrorism. The logo
chosen by TIA was a pyramid with an all-seeing eye, the same strange
Masonic symbol on the back of the dollar bill, gazing at the entire
globe.
Meanwhile, a
state-level initiative was taking shape with similar objectives.
A company now owned by LexisNexis called Seisint developed a system
called the Multi-state Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (Matrix).
Its name was an intentional reference to the computer-dominated
culture portrayed in the hit movie with the same name. The company
used technology originally created for marketing purposes to give
criminal investigators the ability to ask deeply layered and complex
questions about pools of data. Ties between places and people
that could never be deciphered with the naked eye could easily
be rooted out with the Matrix software.
These two plans
to pry into the lives of ordinary Americans are thankfully no
more. In November 2002 harsh publicity brought out a furry of
outrage against Poindexter and his plans for an omniscient government
entity, which led to Congress pulling the plug in September of
2003. Citing high costs and privacy concerns, almost all of the
thirteen states that originally agreed to participate in the Matrix
program have withdrawn their support, including Michigan. Now
only four states are continuing to use the system.
Don't be too
quick to celebrate, because despite these minor victories for
civil rights, the damage has been done. The information systems
still in place may go by slightly less Orwellian names, but there
is now hardly a law enforcement agency in the country that doesn't
use some form of data-veillance.
Police
State
There is no
end in sight to what those possessed with patriotic fervor will
utilize in the name of pursuing threats to national security.
A whole slew of new biometric technologies are now being implemented
on a large scale. Retinal scans to gain access to your child's
school, face-recognition cameras in public areas, finger and handprint
scans to get into work or to make financial transactions are all
becoming common place. GPS systems in cell phones and automobiles
have the capability to constantly monitor our whereabouts. A company
founded in 2002 called Dust Networks has developed a type of sensor
called "smart dust." These battery powered devices are
about the size of a bottle cap and can sense chemicals or vehicles,
and may even be able to take photographs. If a few hundred are
placed in a nine-square-mile area, they have the ability to communicate
with each other and report findings to a central location. Radio
frequency identification or RFID chips, some as small as fleas,
are being embedded in products, pets, and even people. These chips
can contain up to 128 bits of information, and only need to be
scanned with a low-power device to reveal whatever they contain.
Most people will embrace this new technology as a matter of convenience,
unaware that their daily routines are being permanently recorded.
Our nation is
often quick to forget its own history. A history of blacklists
and red scares. A history of illegal break-ins and arms scandals.
A history of racial profiling and interment camps. At the slightest
mention of an enemy lurking among us, we are easily persuaded
to give up our essential liberties. As we instill our version
of freedom around the globe, by force if necessary, we ironically
sacrifice the very anonymity that enables us to have a working
democracy at home. As the surveillance tools available grow more
and more precise and advanced, so does the potential for abuse
when they fall into the wrong hands. And sometimes, the wrong
hands may belong to the very same authority figures who promise
they are only doing what is in our best interest. Living in a
police state with our every action weighed against us will not
make us feel safer, but it does have the potential to force us
to conform to a set standard of obedience.
Written
By Jason Glover
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