Data mining is a serious issue that all Americans should become familiar with because it can seriously impact their way of life in the future. Unfortunately, many people fail to realize that freedoms are not taken away all at once, but instead incrementally until we realize they are long gone.
According to Ramasastry (2004), “Data mining, without adequate privacy safeguards, has the potential to be used as a tool to spy on American citizens without the judicial or procedural constraints that limit how far more traditional surveillance techniques can infringe privacy” (¶4). There are extensive United States (US) government activities as it relates to data mining. Much of the activity has the best of intentions, but can seriously impact personal liberties if left unchecked. Data mining efforts have become so intense that has raised many eyebrows on Capitol Hill.
In response to a US Senate request, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) recently outlined the federal government’s role in data mining. The GAO report (as cited in Sinrod, 2004) indicated that “. . . no less than 52 federal departments and agencies are using or are planning to use data mining, 131 data mining efforts currently are operational, and 68 such efforts are intended” (¶1). The reporter’s next paragraph provided even more concrete insight into targeted activities:
Significantly, of these 199 current and intended data mining efforts, 122 used personal information. Of 54 efforts to mine data from the private sector (including credit reports or credit card transactions), 36 involve personal information. Of 77 efforts to mine data from other federal agencies, 46 target personal information (such as student loan application data, bank account numbers, credit card information, and taxpayer identification numbers). (¶1)While in the military, I and my shipmates took very seriously our obligation to observe federal statutes that prohibit using tax dollars to collect intelligence on US persons around the globe or against any entities within the US. There are occasions when the federal government is authorized to collect intelligence against these entities. However, only in extreme circumstances authorized specifically by the US Attorney General, a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court warrant, or specific legislative provisions annotated in the Patriot Act.
Although my Intelligence Community colleagues and I were vigilant at distinguishing between legal and unlawful, there are some incidents where others in the government have a blurry view of the fine line between protection of the people and protection of civil liberties. Recently, a bi-partisan group of US Senators (Grassley R-IA, Hagel R-NE, and Nelson D-FL) were very concerned to learn that the Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA), an office under the military’s Department of Defense (DoD), commissioned a $10 million dollar program to develop an extremely comprehensive data mining tool called Total Information Awareness (TIA). Two issues concerned the senators, specifically:
- potential violation of the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits the military from participating in domestic police functions and law enforcement, and
- the violation of civil liberties by the development of a tool that collects and analyzes significant amounts of data against US persons.
Senators wanted to know why the military was developing a capability that indicated obvious applications in law enforcement, and was concerned that illegal activity might have already occurred during testing and development. Fortunately, the development process only used false data and the liberties of US persons were not violated. The DoD Office of Inspector General (2003) presented comprehensive information outlining the positive and negative aspects of TIA; one argument suggested, “The data search, pattern recognition, and privacy protection technologies would permit analysts to search vast quantities of data for patterns that suggest terrorist activity while at the same time controlling access to the data, enforcing laws and policies, and ensuring detection of misuse of the information obtained” (p. 1).
However, the DoD Office of Inspector General (2003) scolded DARPA for not at least considering civil liberties issues and stated, “”Because DARPA anticipated that TIA would be used for domestic law enforcement, a privacy impact assessment should have been performed” (p. 6). DARPA suggested that it was not required to consider these ethical questions because they were only using synthetic data during the testing and development of the capability.Overall, the DoD Officer of Inspector General (2003) considered TIA very similar to another program Congress had recently voiced concern over:
Congress has criticized the Transportation Security Agency’s Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II) because the system potentially impacts the public’s right to privacy and civil liberties. CAPPS II is a computer system that can screen the backgrounds of airline passengers looking for potential ties to terrorism by searching Government and commercial databases in an effort to make determinations about individuals as potential aviation security risks. (p. 5)Fortunately, Congress forced DARPA to cease its development of TIA; however, it is still considering implementing a watered-down version of CAPPS II under the guise of protecting the nations airports and air transportation. However if history is any indication, it is only a matter of time when privacy standards will be relaxed incrementally until the government grants itself the power to collect as much data as it deems necessary to protect us all. Many can remember such legislation associated with seat belts and cigarettes — now motorists can be stopped and cited specifically for not wearing a seat belt, and cigarettes are banned in almost every public building, private establishments (restaurants and bars), and nearly banned in private residential homes in a Maryland county in 2004. I just wish that authorities would have come right out and told us all of those years ago that we must drive to a restaurant with our seatbelt fastened and leave the cigarettes in the car!
Questions of ethics are not simple by any stretch of the imagination. There are obvious gains for society by placing limits on a person’s activity. However, I wonder just how careful citizens are at safeguarding their personal freedoms. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency for government to assert that it knows best how to protect us, and many surrender a little piece of their civil liberties little by little over time. Concerning the matter of privacy, the DoD Office of Inspector General (2003) included a synopsis of Public Law 93-579, the Privacy Act of 1974 that:
. . . provides that the privacy of an individual is directly affected by the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal information by Federal agencies. The increasing use of computers and sophisticated information technology has increased the threat to individual privacy that can occur when collecting, maintaining, using, and disseminating personal information. The Privacy Act provides certain safeguards against the invasion of privacy for an individual. One of the purposes of the Privacy Act is to permit individuals to determine which records pertaining to them are collected, maintained, or disseminated to other agencies and grants individuals the right to access and amend those records if they are not accurate, relevant, current, or complete. DoD policy prohibits the disclosure of personally identifiable records that Government agencies maintain without a person’s consent. (p. 12)Today’s generation may permit the federal government to continue meager and responsible data mining capabilities, and conduct limited targeting of US persons with taxpayer dollars. However, we must always consider that future generations (or domestic or international incidents) might influence lower privacy standards and increased intrusion into a citizen’s civil liberties. Allowing continuous drips of water from a faucet will eventually create an ocean. Very small, incremental steps barely cause one to notice; however, I hope everyone will still nevertheless keep a vigilant watch.
References
Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. (2003). Information technology management: terrorism information program (D-2004-033). December 12, 2003 [Electronic Version]. Retrieved July 13, 2005, from http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Audit/reports/FY04/04-033.pdf
Ramasastry, A. (2004, January 7). The safeguards needed for government data mining: The defense inspector general’s recommendations, and beyond.Find Law Resources. Retrieved July 13, 2004, from http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20040107.html
Sinrod, E. J. (2004, June 9). What’s up with government data mining? USA Today. Retrieved July 13, 2005, from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ericjsinrod/2004-06-09-sinrod_x.htm
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