Sunday, July 10, 2005

Big Brother's Software

New stuff out there...called Entity Analysis.

Now marketed by IBM, the software was developed in Las Vegas to help casinos identify individuals with unsavory connections.

Briefly, it 'vacuums' information bits from a variety of public (and private) sources and assembles 'relationships' with other individuals. You might belong to the same church and Google-search the same places as a "person of interest" in a series of armed robberies--so you, too, will become a "person of interest."

Some of us have maintained that the powers granted under the Patriot Act are ripe for misuse by the Feds; although the current Administration is composed of people with integrity, the next one might not have such people.

Recall that Janet Reno specified "home-schoolers,....those who believe in the Second Coming,...[and] ...those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible" as people "of interest" for domestic terrorism.

That finger coming out of the screen--is it pointing at you?

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