Data mining at the FBI: digging for terrorists, insurance scammers, and ide
In a report sent to Congress this week, the Department of Justice describes six data mining programs currently under way at the FBI. Only one, it turns out, is aimed at terrorists.
“Students who turn in research papers four months late are likely to be rewarded with a big fat zero; the Department of Justice, on the other hand, has to face the wrath of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy was unhappy after the DoJ turned in a late report on the FBI’s use of data mining, but he was unhappier still about the report’s conclusions than its tardiness.
This report raises more questions than it answers and demonstrates just how dramatically the Bush Administration has expanded the use of this technology, often in secret, to collect and sift through Americans’ most sensitive personal information,” Leahy said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Congress and the American public know very little about these and other data mining programs, making them ripe for abuse.”
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