Ve haf a Dossier on You and No, You Can't See It

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:01 PM Permalink

I just wrote the other day about "Terrorists Needles in Super-database Haystacks" (it's down just below Sailor's post on Doan) which was about the government collecting and storing information about practically everyone in America, and son-of-a-gun, here's another article about a new super-database the government wants that will contain BILLIONS of files and trillions of bytes of info on us all.

See this from Think Progress, titled "FBI Seeking To Create 6 Billion Record Database Similar To Total Information Awareness" and think about this:

In the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI is seeking to create a massive new data-mining program which “bears a striking resemblance” to the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program:

The FBI is seeking $12 million for the [National Security Branch Analysis Center] in FY2008, which will include 90,000 square feet of office space and a total of 59 staff, including 23 contractors and five FBI agents. Documents predict the NSAC will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate “records” for each man, woman and child in the United States. The “universe of subjects will expand exponentially” with the expanded role of the NSAC, the Justice Department documents assert.

Concerned about the potential for abuse, House Science and Technology Committee members Brad Miller (D-NC) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) requested last week that the Government Accountability Office investigate the proposal.

I don't know how anybody else feels, but if a man I personally detest, like bush sycophant James Sensenbrenner, is "concerned," it's enough to make my skin crawl and make every hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Big Brother was a piker compared to these guys.

Oh! And I almost forgot! "Data mining" as they call it, has never worked and is almost certainly NEVER going work for finding and identifying terrorists, so why the need for these super-databases?

Labels: Bush, civil liberties, civil rights, FBI, orwell, police state, spying