U.S. launches five research teams to develop covert data mining technology

[IDemo]

Source: PBS

WASHINGTON -- As the Obama administration considers ending the storage of millions of phone records by the National Security Agency, the government is quietly funding research to prevent eavesdroppers from seeing whom the U.S. is spying on, The Associated Press has learned.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has paid at least five research teams across the country to develop a system for high-volume, encrypted searches of electronic records kept outside the government's possession. The project is among several ideas that could allow the government to store Americans' phone records with phone companies or a third-party organization, but still search them as needed.

Under the research, U.S. data mining would be shielded by secret coding that could conceal identifying details from outsiders and even the owners of the targeted databases, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and interviews with researchers, corporate executives and government officials.

The administration has provided only vague descriptions about changes it is considering to the NSA's daily collection and storage of Americans' phone records, which are presently kept in NSA databanks. To resolve legal, privacy and civil liberties concerns, President Barack Obama this month ordered the attorney general and senior intelligence officials to recommend changes by March 28 that would allow the U.S. to identify suspected terrorists' phone calls without the government itself holding the phone records.

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/us-launches-five-research-teams-to-develop-new-covert-data-mining-methods.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRundownNewsBlog+%28The+Rundown+News+Blog%29

[Kelvin Mace]

1. If only we attacked the problems of poverty

with the same zeal that we attack people's privacy in the name "protecting America".

Terrorists have killed a few thousand people in this country while poverty has killed tens of millions.

[adirondacker]

2. Toon from N2doc's post...

[Alamuti Lotus]

3. Thus solving the only REAL problem with these spy agencies: too much awareness about them!

[JDPriestly]

4. K&R to keep the activities of the NSA with regard to spying on electronic communications

on our minds.

"There's no silver bullet that guarantees the intelligence community will only have access to the records they're supposed to have access to," Weitzner said. "We also need oversight of the actual use of the data."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/us-launches-five-research-teams-to-develop-new-covert-data-mining-methods.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRundownNewsBlog+%28The+Rundown+News+Blog%29

[PSPS]

5. More of Bush's fourth term from the "constitutional scholar."