Sheath the Talons
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That's what the US government is doing, closing down TALON, the Threat and Observation Notice system, because of criticism. I'm somewhat glad the program is shurring down, but maybe not for the reasons you think.
I think we in the US have a right to privacy. It's important to me that my decisions, thoughts, comments, and actions made in private, or that do not impact other individuals, should not be subject to scrutiny. If I choose to shovel manure in the nude (yeuch, gross, insert-your-own-image here), I shouldn't have any government agency taking pictures or citing me for doing so if I'm not in site of anyone else.
And I'm usually not on my property.
The TALON program had issues, not because they were searching for individuals that might commit acts of terrorism or even violence against others in the US. It wasn't a failure in terms of identifying criminals. It was a failure because of "mission creep." I'm sure all those having served in battle cringe at the thought of those words.
In short, the people running the program started to use the program to gather information and details on all sorts of non-terrorist groups. They started to invade privacy, probably to further someone's agenda for election, promotion, or other personal gain. They began to look for non-military threats.
Most of the techniques, systems, and ideas that our police officials have start out with the best of intentions. They're good ideas that get abused because they don't have enough oversight and auditing to ensure the accountability that would prevent these abuses.
I want our government to keep us safe and defend our borders. But it has to be done in a way that preserves the very ideals that we are trying to protect. While I might trust Joe-Patriot to run a system and look for ways to protect us, Joe-Patriot's backup or successor might not be quite so willing to do the right thing.
We're all human. Trust that you can't trust all of us because of that simple fact.
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TALON = GESTAPO. Good riddance.
James Stover, McDBA -
Hi all,
I'm french, and I've subscribed your newsletter for a long time (maybe 3 or 4 years ?) because I think the content is of a great value about SQL Server.
But I don't understand how you can write such editorial with nothing about databases and even containing typically US related stuff that I don't even know about, and I'm not interested anyway because I subscribed to get information about databases.
It might not be the right place for that, try to join an external forum dedicated to that matter.
Cheers! /Stephane
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I actually find the editorials interesting sometimes - I read them specifically because they're not always directly about databases - usually when I'm "booting up" for the day.
It's good to hear this stuff, I was reading an article the other week comparing US political initiatives to the steps you need to take to build a fascist state, and Bush ticked all ten of the right boxes (Talon and homeland security being one of them), so for me it's a relief to hear they're being dismantled, another piece of good news from a country which has in recent years seriously started to look like a bunch of right wing religious fanatics with nukes.
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GOOD RIDDANCE....TALON was more fiitting in a communist dictatorship than a democratic country like the USA.....anyone who has seen the movie "The Lives of Others" about East German surveillance of their own citizens will see the similarites with TALON.
Benjamin Franklin once said...."Those who sacrifice Liberty for Security will end up with neither Liberity or Security!!
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Actually I think that was Jefferson...
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I think this editorial is definately about databases, since those are the basis to file information about people and make it searchable. Am I wrong?
Oracle started up as a CIA project and then the Company got named after their main product. This information is easy to look up in the Internet. Larry Ellison also stated that a National ID card is preferable just after 9/11 2001 and that Oracle can provide such databases to that.
The following is a fantastic interview with Aaron Russo who just passed away, a true patriot
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5420753830426590918&hl=en-GB
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Looks to me like they are getting rid of nothing. They are keeping the data, so all they are doing is change the acronym for the operrational program, most likely moving it into the black budget, and it will keep running like it has (and most likely expand).
This is the problem that any of us DBA's should know, once you have gathered the data it is awfully hard to completely purge from the "system" (someone, somewhere, always have a copy, unless your system crashes of course!).
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Let's hope they aren't checking those backups and using MAID. Maybe we'll get a crash!
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I was in federal law enforcement for 15 years, and often felt my hands were tied when it came to catching criminals. It seemed that criminals had all the "rights" and were the only ones "Protected". I later learned it only seemed that way because the criminals were “visible” targets of Government action, so of course they were the ones that seemed to benefit the most from that protection. I'm now older and hopefully wiser and can look back and see that by enforcing those "protections" even with the worst of society insured that the rest of society was also protected. I also know that the line between legal police activity and illegal police activity is often fuzzy and open to interpretation. When the Patriot act was first introduced it scared the heck out of me (warrantless searches, secret courts, etc!). I know how easy it is to abuse the powers granted to authority. There were good reasons that prevented the sharing of information between different areas of the government and it wasn't "Turf Wars" or "Empire Building" that so many sited after 9/11, it was to prevent the potential abusive use of that information by having it all in one place. The information was supposed to be used by those who gathered it for a specific purpose and then destroyed after a set amount of time. I know for a fact that the information is RARELY actually destroyed. I also know that information that was collected for a valid purpose can be easily abused by others for not so valid purposes.
What this all boils down to is "Who watches the watchers?" and "Beware Big Brother". I'm comfortable with our government spying on foreign countries (that's expected) but don't spy on our own citizens. If we are attacked again then we should respond appropriately. I do agree that these types of attacks should be treated as acts of war (when conducted by non-American citizens) and the military should be used to find and kill the perpetrators (and I mean kill, not arrest).
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thank you. You've basically summed it up.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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I agree with the French mademoiselle, let's keep the topic about databases and SQL. But I must admit that I did enjoy the picture of the Eagle.
Doug -
I think Steve has it scoped pretty accurately. His last sentence is profound because it is very true and applies clearly to what can be a very emotionally charged topic.
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It is most assuredly all about databases. One thing to come out of my experience with them -- apart from a rewarding career -- is an awareness of just how easy it is to abuse DBs, and to use them to abuse citizens.
In the US, the federal government can't link various DBs by law. Instead, it sells the data to private companies, like ChoicePoint, which proceed to link them, then buys the information back. (ChoicePoint, you'll recall, provided the list of "felons" to be purged from voting rolls in Florida in 2000.)
Talon will not be shut down, it will be renamed, and moved to some other agency. One doesn't spend millions setting up that sort of apparatus to simply chuck it. The predecessor to Talon was Total Information Awareness (TIA), which was "shut down" once the American public got wind of it and its reach.
Preventing the abuse of data comes down to political will, and all it takes to change a few minds is dollars or fear -- silver or lead/mushroom clouds/anthrax/etc -- because we're human.
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