Fergie's Tech Blog

Bruce Schneier: The Erosion of Freedom

Bruce Schneier writes in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Christmas 2003, Las Vegas. Intelligence hinted at a terrorist attack on New Year's Eve. In the absence of any real evidence, the FBI tried to compile a real-time database of everyone who was visiting the city. It collected customer data from airlines, hotels, casinos, rental car companies, even storage locker rental companies. All this information went into a massive database -- probably close to a million people overall -- that the FBI's computers analyzed, looking for links to known terrorists. Of course, no terrorist attack occurred and no plot was discovered: The intelligence was wrong.

posted by Fergie @ 11/22/2005 07:08:00 AM