US suspends vast ADVISE data-sifting system

[Barrett808]

Source: Christian Science Monitor

US suspends vast ADVISE data-sifting system
The pilot programs ignored privacy safeguards, says a recent Homeland Security report.
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

From late 2004 until mid-2006, a little-known data-mining computer system developed by the US Department of Homeland Security to hunt terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and biological weapons sifted through Americans' personal data with little regard for federal privacy laws.

Now the $42 million cutting-edge system, designed to process trillions of pieces of data, has been halted and could be canceled pending data-privacy reviews, according to a newly released report to Congress by the DHS's own internal watchdog.

Data mining to help fight the war on terror has become an accepted, even mandated, method to provide timely security information. The DHS operates at least a dozen such programs; intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense employ many others.

But ADVISE (Analy­sis, Dissemina­tion, Visu­ali­zation, Insight and Semantic Enhance­ment) was special. An electronic omnivore conceived in 2003, it was designed to ingest information from scores of databases, blogs, e-mail traffic, intelligence reports, and other sources, government documents and researchers say.

Sifting that enormous mass at lightning speed, ADVISE was to display data patterns visually as "semantic graphs" – a sort of illuminated information constellation – in which an analyst's eye could spot links between people, places, events, travel, calls, and organizations worldwide.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0828/p01s02-usju.html?page=1

[Trillo]

1. I bet that "analyst's eye" was able to see

relationships far in excess of any that existed in reality.

Yeah, two bloggers expressing the same or similar idea undoubtedly are partners of a kind. A reciprocal link between them is even stronger evidence that they are co-conspirators (hopefully the sarcasm is evident). Man, if they both made up the same nonsense word, well, then that's proof positive!

Citizen's could use such a system themselves to keep an eye on government and politicians, that is if the government was truly open.

[kestrel91316]

2. Why do I suspect this should read: US CLAIMS to suspend vast

ADVISE data-sifting system?

I seriously doubt any such thing would ever be discontinued under Bushco.

[bemildred]

3. "Data-mining" is mostly horseshit.

And a fancy acronym does not change that.