K-Rider: Government has long history of abusing personal information

[rodeodance]

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14567056.htm
Posted on Fri, May. 12, 2006


Government has long history of abusing personal information
By Ron Hutcheson
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - President Bush has assured Americans that their government isn't spying on them, but history explains why many remain uneasy about this week's news that their phone records have been turned over to federal agents.

The government has a long track record of abusing personal information that's gathered in the name of national security. From the Red Scare in the 1920s to illegal wiretaps during the Nixon era, Americans have struggled to find the right balance between individual rights and collective security.

"The potential for abuse is awesome," a Senate investigation committee concluded in a 1976 report detailing illegal wiretaps, break-ins and other abuses that government agents committed in the 1960s and `70s.

The Senate panel, known as the "Church committee" after its chairman, Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, warned that technological advances would make it even harder for the government to stay within acceptable limits of respecting privacy rights, especially when the nation is at risk of attack. ......

[rodeodance]

1. Larose, has a good point.

But for me the trust factor is not in view.


......"Let's talk about this in a rational way. We're in a war with terror and there are people out there that want to kill us," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. "I don't think this action is nearly as troublesome as it's being made out. They're not tapping our phones and getting our conversations."

The government is using the phone records for data mining, the process of searching through a large volume of information to find useful patterns, in this case, evidence of terrorist communications.

"The problem isn't data mining. It's the people who do it," said Daniel Larose, a statistics professor at Central Connecticut State University and the author of "Data Mining Methods and Models." "It's easy to do badly. Humans tend to see patterns where no patterns exist. They might classify someone as suspicious who doesn't deserve suspicion."

Larose, who has written two other books on the subject, said data mining was like a knife. "You can use it to cut your birthday cake," he said. Or "you can use it to murder somebody in an alley."

[ixion]

2. "We're in a war with terror"

that statement tells me that the author has, at least in part, drank the Kool-Aid®

We're in a war with terror...how the HELL do you do that? You cannot make was with a subjective concept. It is simply impossible on so many levels.


This is, IMO, one of the most disturbing trends our society has taken over the past few decades. We've become fans of wars against abstractions, all of which are unwinnable by the very definition of what a 'war' is.