Wired reports: The ATF doesn’t just want a huge database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It wants one that can find out who you know. And it won’t even try to friend you on Facebook first.
According to a recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau is looking to buy a “massive online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII). The system is intended to operate for at least five years, and be able to process automated searches of individuals, and “find connection points between two or more individuals” by linking together “structured and unstructured data.”
Primarily, the ATF states it wants the database to speed-up criminal investigations. Instead of requiring an analyst to manually search around for your personal information, the database should “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches” such as social security numbers (or even just a fragment of one), vehicle serial codes, age range, “phonetic name spelling,” or a general area where your address is located. Input that data, and out comes your identity, while the computer automatically establishes connections you have with others.
Many other specific requirements are also to be expected for a federal law enforcement agency: searching names, phone numbers, “nationwide utility data” and reverse phone searches. The data will then be collected to help out during investigations and provide “relevant information and intelligence products.” There’s no hint the database is to be used to track gun sales, which is a big part of the ATF’s job, as the bureau is prohibited by law from establishing a centralized electronic database for gun purchases. [Continue reading…]
Our government has gone mad! Seeing the boogieman in the whole population of this country, boggles even the most jaded mind. What kind of water are they drinking there in D.C. Perhaps that fracking business has let loose some space born virus that hit earth millions of years ago, contaminated the supply? The insanity that’s gripped this government came from somewhere, at least that’s my thoughts.
Washington is rushing to catch up with *Person of Interest*.
Read the book “Essential Liberty” by Rob Olive. While written as a novel, the tactics, attitudes, and politics mirror current events and illustrate a most feasible scenario the ATF would employ.