In the New America privacy is a masterfully crafted illusion. We think that what we check out at our neighborhood library, buy at our local mom and pop's grocery, and watch on television is not important and is only known by a few people. This is false! It is very important, governmental agencies are funded to create psychological profiles to determine whether we are with Al-Qaeda or political subversives.

If we are with Al Qaeda or so-called subversives we will be taken to the closest detention center; Halliburton is making sure that there are these centers very close by so that we may be tortured and/or possibly killed. The methods that you have heard about on the tele by the Ministry of Truth does not scratch the surface. How about electrodes taped to your testicles or acid being poured in the orifices of your choice? I for one do not want to be with Al-Qaeda!

There was an egregious program called Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange Program or Matrix. It was run by a private corporation and was federally funded, and would have been funded by Homeland Security. The program purpose according to the Wikipedia was to,

“Tie together government and commercial databases in order to allow federal and state law enforcement entities to conduct detailed searches on particular individuals' dossiers.

The Matrix web site states that the data compiled will include criminal histories, driver's license data, vehicle registration records, and significant amounts of public data record entries. Company officials have refused to disclose more specific details about the nature and sources of the data. According to news reports, the data may also include credit histories, driver's license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates. “

"In Congressional testimony (25 March 2003), a Florida lawmaker, Paula B. Dockery, described how the Matrix works: It combines government records with information from 'public search businesses' into a 'data-warehouse.' There, dossiers are reviewed by 'specialized software' to identify 'anomalies' using 'mathematical analysis.' If 'anomalies' are spotted, they will then be scrutinized by personnel who will search for evidence of terrorism or other crimes.”

The program was scuttled after numerous privacy advocates complained and it had gotten too much press. We had all though that the MATRIX has been unplugged. It seems that this is not the case. The Christian Science Monitor blew the lid off a Homeland Security massive data mining program called ADVISE,

"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."

The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.

DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."

It goes on to explain the real purpose behind ADVISE,

“A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.

What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.

But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash.

For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review.

At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article.”

The program has been cloaked in secrecy for years after 9/11, and in their own internal documents they discuss a nexus of connections between local, State, Federal, private-sector, and governmental entities which is called “Fusion”.

In a 2005 document called “Intelligence and Information Sharing Initiative: Homeland Security Intelligence and Information Fusion” they attempt to establish how they will gather their data,

“This information should serve as a guide for efforts to:
• Identify rapidly both immediate and long-term threats;
• Identify persons involved in terrorism-related activities; and
• Guide the implementation of information-driven and risk-based prevention, response, and
consequence management efforts.

Terrorism-related intelligence is derived by collecting, blending, analyzing, and evaluating relevant information from a broad array of sources on a continual basis. There is no single source for terrorism–related information. It can come through the efforts of the intelligence community; Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement authorities; other government agencies (e.g., transportation, healthcare, general government), and the private sector (e.g., transportation, healthcare, financial, Internet/information technology).

For the most part, terrorism-related information has traditionally been collected outside of the United States. Typically, the collection of this type of information was viewed as the responsibility of the intelligence community and, therefore, there was little to no involvement by most State and local law enforcement entities. The attacks of September 11, 2001, however, taught us that those wanting to commit acts of terrorism may live in our local communities and be engaged in criminal and/or other suspicious activity as they plan attacks on targets within the United States and its territories.

The President and the U.S. Congress have directed that an information sharing environment (ISE) be created in the next two years to facilitate information sharing and collaboration activities within the Federal Government (horizontally) and between Federal, State, tribal, local, and private-sector entities (vertically). The concept of intelligence/information fusion has emerged as the fundamental process (or processes) to facilitate the sharing of homeland security-related information and intelligence at a national level, and, therefore, has become a guiding principle in defining the ISE.”

Important intelligence that may forewarn of a future attack may be derived from information collected by State, tribal, and local government personnel through crime control and other routine activities and/or by people living and working in our local communities. Successful counterterrorism efforts require that Federal, State, tribal, local, and private-sector entities have an effective information sharing and collaboration capability to ensure they can seamlessly collect, blend, analyze, disseminate, and use information regarding threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences in support of prevention, response, and consequence management efforts.

In the 2004 DHS document by the same name they explain how they created their nexus of organizations,

“ Methodology of the Work
• Project was divided into two phases.
– Phase I - Determining the “as-is” environment of intelligence and information sharing
– Phase II - Defining roles, responsibilities and key requirements of State, tribal, and local entities for effective intelligence and information sharing • Phase One – The “as is” environment
– Conducted numerous interviews of federal, state, tribal, local
and private sector officials;
– Met with representatives from TTIC, IAIP, DOJ, HSOC;
– Reviewed studies and reports (NGA, GAO, IACP);
– Conducted survey of State Homeland Security Advisors
Methodology of the Work
• Phase II – Roles, Responsibilities and Requirements of State, Tribal, and Local entities.
– Expanded working group. Federal, state, tribal, local and private sector representatives.
Representatives from the multiple efforts already underway. Subject matter experts from various disciplines.
– Received input from key stakeholders.
Working Group Meetings.
I-95 Corridor Domestic Preparedness Conference.
Annual IACP Meeting.
Connecticut Intelligence and Information Sharing Forum.
Meeting with key Association Representatives.”

Just as the MATRIX planned to share their data with public and private organizations ADVISE plans to do the same and make sure there are no barriers or difficulties to carry out their objectives.

“Recommendation 1: Federal, state, tribal, and local authorities must work together with the private sector to assess threat, vulnerability, risk and consequence.
• The Federal Government should establish a continuity-based, assessment methodology to keep assessment reviews consistent and appoint a single point of contact.
• The needs and the capabilities of private sector entities must be taken into account – particularly those of “key” private sector entities which own and operate that which is determined by the Department of Homeland Security part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure.”
– Legal and regulatory obstacles to public/private information sharing should be identified and resolved.”

The aforementioned nexus also has vast interlocking “mechanisms” that will ensure that their data is of the highest caliber.

“Finding 2: State, Tribal, Local and Private Entities are now “Consumers” of Accurate, Timely, and Actionable Intelligence
“As-is” Environment:
• There exists multiple “mechanisms” to share terrorism-related information to state, tribal and local entities including:
– HSIN/Joint Regional Information Exchange System (DHS);
– Law Enforcement Online (FBI);
– SIPRNET (DOD);
– Regional Information Sharing System Network (DOJ);
– High Intensity Drug Traffic Area (ONDCP); and
– Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs – industry
sector specific).
• Currently the processes and the information systems within these Federal “mechanisms” are not fully integrated.”

What is far worse is that all of the participating private-sector organizations will be in a partnership with Homeland Security and the other interlocking local, State, Federal, “tribal”, Governmental organizations.

“Finding 3: As Collectors of Intelligence State, Tribal, and Local Entities are Now Partners with the Federal Intelligence Community
“As-is” Environment
• Multiple efforts underway to define both the roles and responsibilities as well as the requirements of state and local governments in the collection, analysis, dissemination and use of terrorism-related intelligence/information including:
– Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council/Global intelligence
Working Group;
– Major City Chiefs of Police Terrorist Threat Guidelines;
– DHS-DOJ Network Interoperability Project;
– Implementation of HSPD-8;
– Executive Order 13356 Implementation Plan;
– Congressional restructuring of intelligence/information Community;
and
DHS Information Sharing and Collaboration Program.”

This Homeland Security ADVISE program is the MATRIX's Big Brother. Due to the nexus of connections between organizations and their proposed “Fusion Centers” it goes beyond the scope of counter terrorism and may effect the lives of every American who values their privacy. We need to make sure that this project receives the scrutiny it deserves. Please email all of your freedom loving friends and family this article and subscribe to our RSS feeds for future updates of this important matter.

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We have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl.
Michael Vail