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Pentagon Details New Surveillance System
Critics Fear Proposed Extensive Use of Computer Database Raises Privacy Issues
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 21, 2003; Page A06
The Pentagon yesterday detailed the development of a massive computer surveillance system that would have the power to track people as never before.
It would identify people at great distances by the irises of their eyes, the grooves in their face or even their gait. It would look for suspicious patterns in video footage of people's movements. And it would analyze airline ticket purchases, visa applications, as well as financial, medical, educational and biometric records to try to predict terrorists' acts or catch them in the planning stage.
The technology does not yet exist, and no one knows whether its creation is even possible. Indeed, the very concept of what was originally known as the government's Total Information Awareness initiative raised so many privacy and civil liberties issues that, in February, Congress banned its deployment. Legislators asked for more information about the project and sought an analysis about how citizens' privacy would be balanced with the need for security.
The report that was delivered to legislators yesterday identifies the effort by a new name -- the Terrorist Information Awareness program. It sought to allay concerns about privacy by outlining policies to conduct spot audits of the data being collected and implementing technical safeguards.
"The program's previous name, 'Total Information Awareness' program, created in some minds the impression that TIA was a system to be used for developing dossiers on U.S. citizens," the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, said in a statement. "DoD's purpose in pursuing these efforts is to protect U.S. citizens by detecting and defeating foreign terrorist threats before an attack."
DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker said the report is intended to express the agency's "full commitment to planning, executing and overseeing the TIA program in a way that protects privacy and civil liberties."
The core system seeks to create a database of public and private records that could be analyzed for patterns leading up to terrorism. The Pentagon has budgeted $9.2 million for the program in 2003, $20 million in 2004 and $24.5 million in 2005.
"Attempts to 'connect the dots' quickly overwhelm unassisted human abilities," the report stated. "By augmenting human performance using these computer tools, the TIA Program expects to diminish the amount of time humans must spend discovering information and allow humans more time to focus their powerful intellects on things humans do best -- thinking and analysis."
The report outlines technologies and related programs in the surveillance system, including programs to mine data in foreign-language communications and to gauge biological threats by analyzing data from hospitals and other sources.
Other, more speculative systems borrow from prediction techniques used in the corporate world.
One, code-named "FutureMAP," would watch fluctuations in the public markets to assess sentiment on a particular topic, "avoiding surprise and predicting future events." Another, the "Misinformation Detection" system, would analyze language and other aspects of text for false or misleading information. In 2002, the report said, some researchers demonstrated an ability to detect which companies might be the target of Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, based on public filings.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who sponsored the February bill that requires intelligence agencies to get congressional approval before deploying the technology, said the report confirmed his worries that the system may not be the best use of the government's resources because it focuses mostly on theoretical possibilities.
He said new guidelines are needed on how such data should be used. Current privacy laws protect individuals, but they apply only to the private sector. The regulations place few constraints on the government's ability to gain access to material for terrorism investigations.
"I don't take a back seat to anybody in fighting the Mohamed Attas of the world, but before we send people on a virtual goose chase, the country needs to understand what's at stake," Wyden said, referring to one of the terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001. That sentiment was echoed by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who said the report "fails to propose any specific new rules to address the concerns raised by Congress."
Privacy and civil liberties groups were less diplomatic in their criticism. The American Civil Liberties Union called it an "Orwellian program." The Electronic Freedom Forum dubbed it a "giant suspicion-generating machine."
Both groups said the initiative goes against the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty, and expressed worry that people deemed terrorists by computer programs would not have any way of knowing and any way of getting off such a list.
Civil liberties groups have fielded numerous complaints from some people placed on the "watch list" for the Transportation Security Administration because they have names similar to those of known terrorists, and could not stop airlines from detaining and searching them on every flight.
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© 2003 The Washington Post Company 53.7 million is slated for this project all together and it is already 1 1/2 years into the project. Change the name all you want to but shaken up and stirred it's still a martini.
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