GovernmentExecutive.com

Concerns that the Total Information Awareness system (a network to sift through Americans' personal data) never truly was killed, was resurrected (again) by the Wall Street Journal in an article published March 10. "According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency [National Security Agency] now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records," according to the article. The Journal cites a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data called the Digital Collection System, which has attracted the attention of Congress.

One of those speculating that this has been going on for some time has been National Journal's Shane Harris.

Anne Laurent, former executive editor at Government Executive magazine, writes in her blog, The Agile Mind, about the recent unclassified report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on report unveiling the Reynard project, conducted by the ODNI's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity to spy on players in virtual worlds to see if they can, as Laurent quotes, "identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments" and then "apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world." Her post highlights just how quickly technology is moving as compared with Congress' ability to understand it. Her point:

DNI archly informs lawmakers that they won't be getting much real information about intelligence community data mining because they asked for the wrong thing. The law [the 2007 Data Mining Reporting Act] defines data mining as "a program involving pattern-based queries, searches or other analyses of 1 or more electronic databases" to "discover or locate a predictive pattern or anomoly indicative of terrorist activities." But that's not the kind of data mining DNI uses most, the report says.

"Analysis performed within the ODNI and its constituent elements for counterterrorism and similar purposes is often performed using various types of link analysis tools [which] start with a known or suspected terrorist or other subject of foreign intelligence interest and use various methods to uncover links between that known subject and potential associates or other persons with whom that subject is or has been in contact," the report says. But "the Data Mining Reporting Act does not include such analyses within its definition of 'data mining' because such analyses are not 'pattern-based." Note to Congress: Catch up. Fix your definitions.

My former colleague at CIO Magazine Ben Worthen, now at the Wall Street Journal, posted this bit on the WSJ Business Technology Blog on "an all-government dose of paranoia-inducing tech security stories." Seems like agents, both in the FBI and intelligence community, have taken a liking to the latest biometric technology and Internet apps, calling into question just whom the federal government is watching.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is teaming up with West Virginia University in national security efforts using biometric technology. According to a press announcement released yesterday, WVU will serve as the academic arm of the FBI's Biometric Center of Excellence, providing biometrics research support to the FBI and its law enforcement and national security partners.

The center will coordinate biometric and identity management activities within the FBI and partner with other U.S. government agencies to develop and train users on biometric technologies and systems. The goal is to leverage biometric technology in the fight against terrorism and intelligence efforts.

Thomas Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, credited WVU as having "comprehensive, integrative research and education programs in biometrics," and being known around the world for identification technology research. Perhaps. But there's much to say about the value of proximity -- Clarksburg is home to the Criminal Justice Information Services Division, and Fairmont hosts the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

One has to also wonder how much of a role Sen. Byrd, D-WV, played in the decision, too. The FBI has Byrd to thank for driving the construction of a new Biometrics Fusion Center building at the Harrison County campus, with the addition of $7 million to the fiscal year 2006 Defense Appropriations bill signed into law. He also secured more than $141 million to launch and expand Defense's own biometrics initiatives, which of course contribute to FBI's efforts.

Of course, what came first? The chicken or the egg. Did Byrd's support of FBI efforts come because of its presence in West Virginia, or did the FBI's presence in West Virginia grow with support from Byrd. No doubt state government doesn't much care. This is not to discredit WVU contributions in the area of biometrics. It's National Science Foundation Center for Identification Technology Research teams up with other universities to drive research, which had earned praise in and outside federal government.

Privacy and security has always been a tug-of-war issue: The argument is you have to give up some privacy to get some security. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, is working on a cybersecurity plan that would ask Americans to give up a lot of privacy to get their security, according to a New Yorker article. (Subscription required.)

The proposal that is getting the most attention is giving the government the ability to search "the content of any email, file transfer or web search," according to an article on vnunet.com.

According to that article, the New Yorker author, Lawrence Wright:

suggested that this kind of monitoring is already going on. He spoke to an AT& T employee, Mark Klein, who claimed that he installed data switching systems in the company's exchange that copied all internet traffic to the National Security Agency.

"I know that whatever went across those cables was copied and the entire data stream was copied," said Klein. "We are talking about domestic as well as international traffic."

He added that previous claims by the Bush administration that only international communications were being intercepted are not accurate.

Our pals over at the innovation department in the Defense Intelligence Agency asked us to let the world know they are looking for some good ideas and technologies to power the next generation of the Defense Intelligence Information System.

Vendors can submit their ideas to DIA on Web and when products or technologies meet requirements, vendors are invited to present them in a one-hour pitch at a DIA facility in beautiful New Carrollton, Md.

DIA said it’s looking for IT innovation in a number of areas to help intelligence collectors and analysts in such areas as document and content management, knowledge and records management as well as new software, gadgets or gizmos that can improve systems and security management.

The members of the 9/11 Commission recommended that the intelligence agencies do a better job of sharing intelligence information. The direct quote form the 9/11 Commission Report: "We propose that information be shared horizontally, across new networks that transcend individual agencies."

Is this what the commission had in mind as a new network? Intelligence agencies say they plan to create "A-Space," a private social networking site modeled on the popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook.

This is how The Federal Times described it in an article posted yesterday:

The move is the latest part of an ongoing effort to transform the analytical business following the failure to detect the 9/11 terrorist attacks or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, believes the common workspace – a kind of “MySpace for analysts” – will generate better analysis by breaking down firewalls across the traditionally stove-piped intelligence community. He says the technology can also help process increasing amounts of information where the number of analysts is limited.

A-Space should appeal to younger recruits whom intelligence agencies need to attract. After all, the intelligence agencies are relying on younger employees to develop new ways to fight terrorism, as The New York Times Magazine pointed out in a Dec. 3, 2006, cover article:

[T]hroughout the intelligence community, spies are beginning to wonder why their technology has fallen so far behind — and talk among themselves about how to catch up. Some of the country’s most senior intelligence thinkers have joined the discussion, and surprisingly, many of them believe the answer may lie in the interactive tools the world’s teenagers are using to pass around YouTube videos and bicker online about their favorite bands. Billions of dollars’ worth of ultrasecret data networks couldn’t help spies piece together the clues to the worst terrorist plot ever. So perhaps, they argue, it’ s time to try something radically different. Could blogs and wikis prevent the next 9/11?

We'll find out.

As we all know, moving is a painful experience eased by careful planning. The National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) seems to be trying to lessen the pain as much as possible.

The NGA kicked off this week the process for moving 8,500 of its employees, and a whole mess of classified gadgets and gizmos, to new digs at Ft. Belvoir, Va., by 2011.

NGA said in the only procurement notice it plans to issue for the move that it needs a contractor that has the “the proven ability to plan, integrate, organize, synchronize and execute a complex sustained, classified move of equipment, materials” and all the NGA personnel and their office stuff from six locations in the Washington, D.C., area to its new 2.4 million-square-foot building.

NGA is looking for more than a bunch of Irish guys with strong backs and a fleet of trucks. The agency says it needs folks to handle the move who are cleared at the Top Secret/Special Intelligence/Talent Keyhole level.

If anyone knows what all the above means, they’re probably a quarter of the way to getting the job.

Shane Harris, who writes about intelligence for National Journal, suggests in his blog that the recent nomination of Donald Kerr as deputy Director of National Intelligence (DNI) signals a "big push" into technology. Kerr, who will report to Director Mike McConnell, served as director of the heavily technology-reliant National Reconnaissance Office since July 2005. Harris writes:

The DNI's office is launching a big push on the science and technology front. As part of the fiscal 2008 budget request, McConnell has asked Congress for money to set up the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, iARPA, modeled after the successful Pentagon R&D unit, DARPA. Kerr used to run the CIA's science and technology division, and so has some familiarity with that terrain. As a former senior CIA official reminded me this morning, a huge portion of the intelligence community is devoted to technical issues--everything from signals collection and processing to geospatial intelligence. Kerr is also double-hatted at NRO--he's assistant to the Secretary of the Airforce.