Total information awareness everywhere

According to this article, a database firm sent the Feds a list of 120,000 "potential terrorists" based on a "terrorism quotient" developed by scoring over 4 billion records.

The scoring incorporated such factors as age, gender, ethnicity, credit history, "investigational data," information about pilot and driver licenses, and connections to "dirty" addresses known to have been used by other suspects.

According to Seisint's presentation, dated January 2003 and marked confidential, the 120,000 names with the highest scores were given to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, FBI, Secret Service and Florida state police....

Of the people with the 80 highest scores, five were among the Sept. 11 hijackers, Seisint's presentation said. Forty-five were identified as being or possibly being under existing investigations, while 30 others "were unknown to FBI."

"Investigations were triggered and arrests were made by INS and other agencies," the presentation added. Two bullet points stated: "Several arrests within one week" and "Scores of other arrests." It does not provide details of when and where the investigations and arrests took place.

I'm somewhat suspicious of these claims - my regressions are never that accurate! - but let's pass on that question for now. What I find especially interesting is that the same firm is selling similar sorts of information to private buyers as well as to the government. SmartJury, a division of Seisint, provides:

...real-time access to public record information on potential jurors. Within seconds of entering potential jurors, you will receive reports including information such as: Criminal Records; Political Party Affiliations; Bankruptcies; Corporate Affiliations; Real Property Ownership (including value); Motor Vehicle Registrations; Web Site Domain Names; and 2000 Census Information (including median household income, average age, average years of education, and median home value).

Helpfully, SmartJury also provides demographic information from survey results to predict how each juror will vote! Part of the appeal of the jury system is the idea of drawing from a random/representative sample of the population - is that no longer possible? (And remember, the technology only needs to be good enough for the plaintiff to systematically identify just 1 juror who will push for acquital.)

And here is more meat for the conspiracy minded. The board chairman of Siesint is the former Director of the United States Secret Service and the board of SmartJury is littered with well-placed government types like Jack Kemp, William Bennett and Robert Kennedy Jr.

Thanks to Carl Close for the pointer.