Census Data used screen flights

Turns out that the government is using all kinds of data to build their new CAPPS II passenger screening program, including Census data; a major no-no and violation of privacy issues.
One of my favorite parts of this discussion on the issue is a comment from a commentor further down the page: “If you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, don’t bring in more hay.” He makes the point that the failure of 9/11 was not that we didn’t have enough data, but that we didn’t have enough people to process the data we had. But they’ve increased the amount of data they collect, without increasing the people to analyze it, and the result is that people are using broad generalizations to track terrorists and gathering up mostly innocent folks in the net as a result.

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