If ya'll remember back a couple of years ago, Admiral Poindexter was developing a DoD intelligence gathering operation called "Total Information Awareness." Here is a quote concerning it:
"Poindexter's goal was to predict terrorist attacks by looking for telltale patterns of activity in passport applications, visas, work permits, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases and arrests, as well as credit transactions and education, medical and housing records.
But the research created a political uproar because such reviews of millions of transactions could put innocent Americans under suspicion. One of Poindexter's own researchers, David D. Jensen at the University of Massachusetts, has acknowledged that "high numbers of false positives can result."
Disturbed by the privacy implications, Congress last fall closed Poindexter's office, part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (search), and barred the agency from continuing nearly all his research. Poindexter quit government, claiming his work was misunderstood."
From what I have read of "Able Danger" it is being described as a similar "data-mining" effort. In fact, the first paragraph in the above quote sounds exactly like the news description of how Atta came under suspicion of Able Danger. Some are now saying it (Able Danger) could have prevented 9-11 if Atta had been picked up or at least just watched more closely. Could TIA just have been an expansion or continuation of Able Danger? Maybe Able Danger was just proof of concept for TIA? Was Congress wrong it canceling it (TIA)? BTW, some reports indicate the TIA efforts are still ongoing--just under another name.
"Poindexter's goal was to predict terrorist attacks by looking for telltale patterns of activity in passport applications, visas, work permits, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases and arrests, as well as credit transactions and education, medical and housing records.
But the research created a political uproar because such reviews of millions of transactions could put innocent Americans under suspicion. One of Poindexter's own researchers, David D. Jensen at the University of Massachusetts, has acknowledged that "high numbers of false positives can result."
Disturbed by the privacy implications, Congress last fall closed Poindexter's office, part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (search), and barred the agency from continuing nearly all his research. Poindexter quit government, claiming his work was misunderstood."
From what I have read of "Able Danger" it is being described as a similar "data-mining" effort. In fact, the first paragraph in the above quote sounds exactly like the news description of how Atta came under suspicion of Able Danger. Some are now saying it (Able Danger) could have prevented 9-11 if Atta had been picked up or at least just watched more closely. Could TIA just have been an expansion or continuation of Able Danger? Maybe Able Danger was just proof of concept for TIA? Was Congress wrong it canceling it (TIA)? BTW, some reports indicate the TIA efforts are still ongoing--just under another name.