US "Fusion Centers" For Intelligence Sharing

Wired has an article on the national fusion centers in the US, which were created to aid intelligence-sharing in the fight against terrorism but are increasingly being used to look at other sorts of crimes. The keynote of these centers is "all hazards, all threats" — the LA police chief is quoted: "Information that might seem innocuous may have some connection to terrorism." The ACLU has up an interactive US map to help you become acquainted with your local fusion center.

how to catalog all this information?

[suck_burners_rice]

The real issue at hand is not where the information is gathered, but how a tremendous amount of information can be organized and accessed in a way that actually helps avoid future terrorist attacks. As the police chief said, seemingly innocuous information might be connected to a threat, but then again, it might just be innocuous information. Burying ourselves in mountains of information, a majority of it innocuous, might actually work against us. There must be a way to catalog information so that connections can be made between seemingly separate items to form an accurate picture of what the terrorists are planning.

Power expands to fill all available space

[jonaskoelker]

Wired has an <a>article</a>

Not fixed. The again, we don't read articles around here ;)

on the national fusion centers in the US, which were created to aid intelligence-sharing in the fight against terrorism

How much terrorism has happened recently? Hasn't enough resources been put into fighting it?

but are increasingly being used to look at other sorts of crimes.

Hmm... is this perhaps part of a "we're tough on crime" bullet to put on the election checklist? Or possibly a way to hand more power to the law enforcement?

Just some things to ponder...

Please start tracking me ....

[Russ Nelson]

Please start tracking me ... I am a firm believer in the non-violent overthrow of the United States Government. Politicans need to be changed like diapers, and often for the same reason.

Re:No link to wired article?

[swright]

hmm, I find this as scary as the next guy - but isn't there a part of every geek that finds its fascinating?

Its like the holy grail of data analysis; transcending the bording bits of storage and indexing to the complex fun bits of trying to organise data and explore interfaces for making easy for humans to tag related 'facts' and associate them with others.

Not a fan of big brother - but I've love to be writing the tech that does it!!!

Diary of Anne Frank

[MillionthMonkey]

Oh geez can you imagine if the Internet had been around when Anne Frank was alive? That diary would have been a lot shorter but at least it would been online and she could have liveblogged the whole Holocaust to the rest of the world:

6 June 1944
I see the world gradually being turned into a wasteland. I hear the ever approaching thunder which will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions of people and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I somehow feel that all this will come right again, that also this savagery will stop, that there will be peace and tranquillity in the world once again.
Until that time, I must hold onto my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll still be able to realise them.
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July 1, 1944
If I'm watched to that extent, I start by getting snappy, then unhappy and finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I so would like to be, and what I could be, if, there weren't any other people living in the world.
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NOTE: THIS BLOG HAS BEEN ARCHIVED OR SUSPENDED FOR A VIOLATION OF OUR TERMS OF SERVICE

Re:all in the name of '9-11'

[TubeSteak]

that 'goddamn piece of paper' as our beloved leader calls it.

That "quote" keeps getting brought up, probably because it jives with your perceptions of President Bush.

AFAIK he never said that.
Here's what I had to say about it in Oct of 2006 [slashdot.org]
Here's what factcheck.org has to say about it [factcheck.org]

The guy writing capitolhillblue has a history of bullshit, retracted the story, then put it back online even though no one else could substantiate his story and every other blogger on the internet apologized for repeating it.

Stop repeating one man's lie.

May I recommend...

[StreetStealth]

...the 2006 film The Lives of Others [rottentomatoes.com], which presents Germany's more recent past in a way that seems a lot more like a potential American future than the Godwinian parallels most people seem to draw.

While I can't comment on the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the GDR in 1985 (it looked convincing, but I wasn't there), I can say its portrayal of a subtle, businesslike surveillance state, quite unlike the obviously super-evil third reich half a century earlier, seemed a lot more efficient in eliminating dissent.

Dramatic disappearances in the night? Dissidents gunned down in the streets? No, if you spoke out against the GDR (again, at least as envisioned in the film), you didn't have to fear for your life. You just found your career a little "harder" to continue in. You found life gradually less satisfying... Shipped off to a torture chamber with all manner of horrific devices? No, just sent to a little room. To talk. For a long time. Until you cooperated.