Wanted: A National Policy Defining Data Mining, Data Collection, and Surveillance for Anti-Terrorism Efforts

by Curt Hall

Common sense dictates that intelligence and other law enforcement agencies should be able to utilize the significant advances in data mining and other business intelligence (BI) technologies that are readily available -- and commonly used by commercial enterprises for CRM efforts -- in an effort to interdict terrorist activities. Yet "data mining" has become a dirty term -- one now used to conjure up images in the press of crooked intelligence and law enforcement officials using the technology to spy on and track innocent Americans. In fact, every time some US government agency announces a new application intended to combat terrorism, data privacy advocates crank up their PR engines along with the press in an effort to highlight the system as dangerous to civil liberties because of its use of "data mining."