Privacy protecting programs killed

[kalian]

http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/view.bg?articleid=337

WASHINGTON - Two cutting-edge computer projects designed to preserve the privacy of Americans were quietly killed while Congress was restricting Pentagon data-gathering research in a widely publicized effort to protect innocent citizens from futuristic anti-terrorism tools.

As a result, the government is quietly pressing ahead with research into high-powered computer data-mining technology without the two most advanced privacy protections developed to police those terror-fighting tools.

"It's very inconsistent what they've done," said Teresa Lunt of the Palo Alto Research Center, head of one of the two government-funded privacy projects eliminated last fall.

Even members of Congress like Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who led the fight to restrict the Pentagon terrorism research, remain uncertain about the nature of the research or the safeguards. He won a temporary ban on using the tools against Americans on U.S. soil but wants to require the administration to give Congress a full description of all its data-mining research.

...more...

Imagine when the makers of these software start data mining the
private information of senators and representatives...and then the
bushistas can blackmail them...