Data-Mining Counterterrorism Programs Should Be Evaluated For Effectiveness

Via ScienceDaily -

All U.S. agencies with counterterrorism programs that collect or "mine" personal data -- such as phone, medical, and travel records or Web sites visited -- should be required to systematically evaluate the programs' effectiveness, lawfulness, and impacts on privacy, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Both classified and unclassified programs should be evaluated before they are set in motion and regularly thereafter for as long as they are in use, says the report. It offers a framework agencies can use to assess programs, including existing ones.

The report also says that Congress should re-examine existing law to assess how privacy can be protected in such programs, and should consider restricting how personal data are used. And it recommends that any individuals harmed by violations of privacy be given a meaningful form of redress.

"The danger of terror attacks on the U.S. is real and serious, and we should use the information technologies at our disposal to combat this threat," said William Perry, co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, former U.S. secretary of defense, and Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University. "However, the threat does not justify government activities that violate the law, or fundamental changes in the level of privacy protection to which Americans are entitled."

At the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation, the report examines the technical effectiveness and privacy impacts of data-mining and behavioral surveillance techniques. Each time a person makes a telephone call, uses a credit card, pays taxes, or takes a trip, he or she leaves digital tracks, records that often end up in massive corporate or government databases. Through formal or informal agreements, government has access to much of the data owned by private-sector companies. Agencies use sophisticated techniques to mine some of these databases -- searching for information on particular suspects, and looking for unusual patterns of activity that may indicate a terrorist network.