U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally System Would Be Used to Hunt Terrorists

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

 From The Washington Post,
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40942-2002Nov11.html><http:/
/www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40942-2002Nov11.html>
-
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
System Would Be Used to Hunt Terrorists
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.

A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer
surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to
personal information in government and commercial databases around the
world.

The Information Awareness Office, run by former national security
adviser John M. Poindexter, aims to develop new technologies to sift
through "ultra-large" data warehouses and networked computers in
search of threatening patterns among everyday transactions, such as
credit card purchases and travel reservations, according to interviews
and documents.

Authorities already have access to a wealth of information about
individual terrorists, but they typically have to obtain court
approval in the United States or make laborious diplomatic and
intelligence efforts overseas. The system proposed by Poindexter and
funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at
about $200 million a year, would be able to sweep up and analyze data
in a much more systematic way. It would provide a more detailed look
at data than the super-secret National Security Agency now has, the
former Navy admiral said.

"How are we going to find terrorists and preempt them, except by
following their trail," said Poindexter, who brought the idea to the
Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and now is
beginning to award contracts to high-technology vendors.

"The problem is much more complex, I believe, than we've faced
before," he said. "It's how do we harness with technology the street
smarts of people on the ground, on a global scale."

Though formidable foreign policy and privacy hurdles remain before any
prototype becomes operational, the initiative shows how far the
government has come in its willingness to use information technology
and expanded surveillance authorities in the war on terrorism.

Poindexter said it will take years to realize his vision, but the
office has already begun providing some technology to government
agencies. For example, Poindexter recently agreed to help the FBI
build its data warehousing system. He's also spoken to the
Transportation Security Administration about aiding its development of
a massive passenger-profiling system.

In his first interview since he started the "information awareness"
program, Poindexter, who figured prominently in the Iran-contra
scandal more than a decade ago, said the systems under development
would, among other things, help analysts search randomly for
indications of travel to risky areas, suspicious e-mails, odd fund
transfers and improbable medical activity, such as the treatments of
anthrax sores. Much of the data would be collected through computer
"appliances" -- some mixture of hardware and software -- that would,
with permission of governments and businesses, enable intelligence
agencies to routinely extract information.

Some specialists question whether the technology Poindexter envisions
is even feasible, given the immense amount of data it would handle.
Other question whether it is diplomatically possible, given the
sensitivities about privacy around the world. But many agree, if
implemented as planned, it probably would be the largest data
surveillance system ever built.

Paul Werbos, a computing and artificial-intelligence specialist at the
National Science Foundation, doubted whether such "appliances" can be
calibrated to adequately filter out details about innocent people that
should not be in the hands of the government. "By definition, they're
going to send highly sensitive, private personal data," he said. "How
many innocent people are going to get falsely pinged? How many
terrorists are going to slip through?"

Former senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on
National Security/21st Century, said there's no question about the
need to use data more effectively. But he criticized the scope of
Poindexter's program, saying it is "total overkill of intelligence"
and a potentially "huge waste of money."

"There's an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one," Hart said when
told about the program.

Poindexter said any operational system would include safeguards to
govern the collection of information. He said rules built into the
software would identify users, create an audit trail and govern the
information that is available. But he added that his mission is to
develop the technology, not the policy. It would be up to Congress and
policymakers to debate the issue and establish the limits that would
make the system politically acceptable.

"We can develop the best technology in the world and unless there is
public acceptance and understanding of the necessity, it will never be
implemented," he said. "We're just as concerned as the next person
with protecting privacy."

Getting the Defense Department job is something of a comeback for
Poindexter. The Reagan administration national security adviser was
convicted in 1990 of five felony counts of lying to Congress,
destroying official documents and obstructing congressional inquiries
into the Iran-contra affair, which involved the secret sale of arms to
Iran in the mid-1980s and diversion of profits to help the contra
rebels in Nicaragua.

Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the highest-ranking Regan
administration official found guilty in the scandal. He was sentenced
to six months in jail by a federal judge who called him "the
decision-making head" of a scheme to deceive Congress. The U.S. Court
of Appeals overturned that conviction in 1991, saying Poindexter's
rights had been violated through the use of testimony he had given to
Congress after being granted immunity.

In recent years, he has worked as a DARPA contractor at Syntek
Technologies Inc., an Arlington consulting firm that helped develop
technology to search through large amounts of data. Poindexter now has
a corner office at a DARPA facility in Arlington. He still wears cuff
links with the White House seal and a large ring from the Naval
Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1958.

As Poindexter views the plan, counterterrorism officials will use
"transformational" technology to sift through almost unimaginably
large amounts of data, something Poindexter calls "noise," to find a
discernable "signal" indicating terrorist activity or planning. In
addition to gathering data, the tools he is trying to develop would
give analysts a way to visually represent what that information means.
The system also would include the technology to identify people at a
distance, based on known details about their faces and gaits.

He cited the recent sniper case as an example of something that would
have benefited from such technology. The suspects' car, a 1990
Chevrolet Caprice, was repeatedly seen by police near the shooting
scenes. Had investigators been able to know that, Poindexter said,
they might have detained the suspects sooner.

The office already has several substantial contracts in the works with
technology vendors. They include Hicks & Associates Inc., a national
security consultant in McLean; Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a management
and technology consultant in McLean; and Ratheon Corp., a technology
company that will provide search and data-mining tools. "Poindexter
made the argument to the right players, so they asked him back into
the government," said Mike McConnell, a vice president at Booz Allen
and former director of the NSA.

The office already has an emblem that features a variation of the
great seal of the United States: An eye looms over a pyramid and
appears to scan the world. The motto reads: Scientia Est Potentia, or
"knowledge is power."

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