New Profiling Program Raises Privacy Concerns

NEW PROFILING PROGRAM RAISES PRIVACY CONCERNS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima and Alec Klein]
The Department of Homeland Security is testing a data-mining program that would attempt to spot terrorists by combing vast amounts of information about average Americans, such as flight and hotel reservations. Similar to a Pentagon program killed by Congress in 2003 over concerns about civil liberties, the new program could take effect as soon as next year. But researchers testing the system are likely to already have violated privacy laws by reviewing real information, instead of fake data, according to a source familiar with a congressional investigation into the $42.5 million program. The idea of the program is to troll a vast sea of information, including audio and visual, and extract suspicious people, places and other elements based on their links and behavioral patterns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022701542.html
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