Able Danger folly

The recent news about the Able Danger scandal wasn't getting me very particularly concerned as it all sounded like a political scandal about how the 9/11 Commission was more interested in politics than getting to the real sources of poor information handling leading to the success of the terrorist strikes.

However, after hearing this report about how the military had a line on four of the terrorists (including leader Mohamed Atta) as early as 1999 - I considered how effective our intelligence services could be. A special unit of our military was able to identify terrorists within our borders and tried to hand that information over to the appropriate agencies (including the FBI and CIA) but this handover was blocked by Pentagon lawyers due to a mistaken interpretation of the law. The really scary fact is that if these terrorists were here on a 'green card' or as citizens (they were here on visas) the correct interpretation of the law would still have legally 'protected' these terrorists. (The UK just taught us that terrorists don't have to be aliens.)

What concerns me is that these laws are hailed as protecting us from undue invasion of privacy by some. I am sure the ACLU can explain this in glorious detail. Consider what complete lack of commonsense this involves... so next time someone complains about how horrific the Patriot Act is, or how incompetent our intelligence agencies are... think about how these same people have worked to hamstring our capabilities and how these laws actually endanger us and protect our enemies.

Comments

[Dennis Fischman]

Since you respect the work of Bruce Schneier, here are some comments that should make you think twice about taking the "Able Danger" story as fact or drawing conclusions from it, even if it bears some resemblance to the truth:

"I'm almost halfway through Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear, a book about security, and it's already changing the way I think about security. When I read about Able Danger, I instantly thought, "But what about the trade-offs?" The pundits talks about the claim that Able Danger identified one of the 9/11 terrorists. They say it strengthens the case for data mining.

Now I see why after Beyond Fear, it says, "Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." The Modern Mythocracy doesn't know anything about Able Danger. The pundits have no idea how many non-terrorists Able Danger tagged. They have no idea what a rogue agent could do with this information. They have no idea what additional risks data mining could present. All they see is one bit of information. They don't know if the trade-offs are worth it.

Instead of thinking sensibly about security, they spin a myth, telling us that data mining is the magical anti-terror panacaea that the government is hiding from us. Now, I don't know anything about Able Danger myself. However, I'm not going to make up a myth about it. I'm not going to tell you that that particular venture in data mining is not worth it. I don't know one way or the other.

You should read Beyond Fear, instead of the latest pundit's myth on what they think will make the nation more secure."

Posted by agnoiologist at 02:20 PM | Comments (0) | Category: Books , Modern Mythocracy

[Stuart Berman]

Thanks for the suggestion - the book is on my list of books to read. I have a lot of respect for Bruce and give him credit for valuable perspective even if I don't always agree with his conclusions.

I don't (yet) have an irrational fear of data mining and am rather an advocate of it. I certainly agree that there is danger in jumping to conclusions and not protecting people from unproven assertions.