CIA's favorite data analysis company, Palantir, which currently operates out of Facebook's old offic

[Huey P. Long]

Data-mining: terrorism prevention or social control?
Submitted by sosadmin on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:11

You may or may not have heard of the CIA's favorite data analysis company, Palantir, which currently operates out of Facebook's old offices in Palo Alto, California. But you likely have heard something about data mining software more generally; it's supposed to be the silver bullet that solves the data-flood problem for the world's spy agencies, which can't seem to know enough about our every movement, thought, purchase, communication, etc.

Software like Palantir is meant to make sense out of the mass of swirling data that clogs databases at the FBI, CIA, DOD, NYPD, LAPD, and increasingly state and local police fusion centers. Those databases contain intimate information about all of us --- and yet the vast majority of us aren't plotting violent schemes, but simply going about our quotidian, daily lives. Palantir and like-programs, the story goes, solve the drowning-in-data problem by "connecting the dots," piecing together seemingly unrelated data points to help intelligence and law enforcement agents distinguish between those people who are planning to bomb something, and those who are not. Palantir does something besides highlight the supposedly dangerous among us, however. As Businessweek reports in a lengthy piece on the company:

An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data—sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner (IT), is “make it really easy to mine these big data sets.” The company’s software pulls off one of the great computer science feats of the era: It combs through all available databases, identifying related pieces of information, and puts everything together in one place.

"Everything together in one place." Sounds creepy, right? It is. And contrary to claims made by Palantir, the CIA and even the Businessweek piece, it doesn't succeed in preventing terrorism. It can't, because data mining and data analysis programs rely on patterns of suspicious behavior in order to determine who is a 'risk'. But as a Homeland Security funded study showed in 2008, predictive terrorism modeling does not work. Why? There is no particular risk profile for people who are likely to commit heinous acts of violence. And furthermore, those people intent on doing real harm will go out of their way to study the latest law enforcement approach, and work diligently to get around it.

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http://privacysos.org/node/407

[SixthSense]

1. Want to see something really scary

look up the original mission of the Gestapo

[Enthusiast]

2. They are compiling a list.

The list will be comprised of those they feel are a threat to global corporate rule. Once this is determined by careful study of internet posts, tweets, e-mail and such then the undesirables will be rounded up and sent to re-education camps for permanent or temporary detention. Just a guess.

[Huey P. Long]

3. And a good guess. Yes, they all will be called 'terrorists', and all rights

revoked, sent to labor camps, and assets siezed.

[MedleyMisty]

4. Good thing I spent my childhood reading survivor accounts of the Holocaust

So I have some mental and emotional preparation and some guidance on how to survive the camps.

But then - who would ever come to liberate us?

[Enthusiast]

5. "But then - who would ever come to liberate us?"

This time, there will be no liberation. That is why the Quislings, the complicit and the enablers are committing the greatest and most unforgivable sin ever.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. Thread resurrected for great justice.

I think "they" got to Huey P. Long... :scared:

[No Elephants]

7. Minx!

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. Jinx!

What is a Minx, anyhoof? Plural of Mink? :-)

If it is a type of cat, I demand captions!

"Many Minx died to bring us this sweater."

[No Elephants]

10. Linx--I mean, links!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/minx

I confess, I had no idea that the correct defnition was so sexist. And how you take a word that means mensch and get a flirtatious woman out of it is beyond me.

I always thought it meant a charmingly playful person, period.

There's a lesson in that boys and girls: assume nothing.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. Roh, roh!

This is creepy, as well as convincing me that I am already doomed as one of those pesky problems. Well, actually, all of us here are. Oh well, too late now.