Feeling a little burnt from stories about its technological incompetence, the Justice Department wooed reporters Tuesday with its massive anti-terrorism database that contains some 659 million records comprising no-fly list data, airline records, driver's license numbers, social security numbers and suspicious financial activity reports, according to this story from Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post.
One assumes that the database includes such things as the hundreds of thousands of records agents culled in 2003 from Las Vegas hotels and casinos, rental car agencies and airlines as part of their response to increased intelligence chatter.
This system is not totally unknown – Washington Post journalist Robert O'Harrow, Jr. covered it in his book No Place to Hide.
Kenneth Ritchhart, the man who headed the project, made his aims clear to O'Harrow: John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness project.
"The technology that he's looking at," Ritchhart told O'Harrow, "is right up our alley."
Is it legal?
Depends on who you talk to.
It's not clear the agency has ever disclosed the database in the Federal Registry or published Privacy Impact Assessments as required by law.
You might also remember that the Justice Department exempted its criminal databases in 2003 from the requirement that they be accurate.
It's now not their problem, its yours.
Photo: Wbs 70
