Data Surveillance Countering Terrorism through Information and Privacy Protection Technologies Security and privacy aren t dichotomous or conflicting concerns the solution lies in developing and integrating advanced information technologies for counterterrorism along with privacy protection technologies to safeguard civil liberties Coordinated policies can help bind the two to their intended use ROBERT POPP National Security Innovations JOHN POINDEXTER JMP Consulting 18 he terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 transformed America like no other event since Pearl Harbor The resulting battle against terrorism has become a national focus and connecting the dots has become the watchword for using information and intelligence to protect the US from future attacks Advanced and emerging information technologies offer key assets in confronting a secretive asymmetric and networked enemy Yet in a free and open society policies must ensure that these powerful technologies are used responsibly and that privacy and civil liberties remain protected In short Americans want the government to protect them from terrorist attacks but fear the privacy implications of the government s use of powerful technology inadequately controlled by regulation and oversight Some people believe the dual objectives of greater security and greater privacy present competing needs and require a trade off others disagree 1 3 This article describes a vision for countering terrorism through information and privacy protection technologies This vision was initially imagined as part of a research and development R D agenda sponsored by DARPA in 2002 in the form of the Information Awareness Office IAO and the Total Information Awareness TIA program It includes a critical focus and commitment to delicately balancing national security objectives with privacy and civil liberties We strongly believe that the two don t conflict and that the ultimate solution lies in utilizing information technologies for counterterrorism along with privacy protection technologies to safeguard civil liberties and twining them together with coordinated policies T PUBLISHED BY THE IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY that bind them to their intended use Background and motivation Terrorists are typically indistinguishable from the local civilian population They aren t part of an organized conventional military force rather they form highly adaptive organizational webs based on tribal or religious affinities They conduct quasi military operations using instruments of legitimate activity found in any open or modern society making extensive use of the Internet cell phones the press schools houses of worship prisons hospitals commercial vehicles and financial systems Terrorists deliberately attack civilian populations with the objective to kill as many people as possible and create chaos and destruction They see weapons of mass destruction not as an option of last resort but as an equalizer a weapon of choice Of the numerous challenges to countering terrorism none are more significant then being able to detect identify and preempt terrorists and terrorist cells whose identities and whereabouts are unknown a priori Alan Dershowitz s Preemption A Knife that Cuts Both Ways W W Norton Company 2006 offers an extensive discussion of preemption and the need for a legal structure In our judgment if preemption is the goal the key to detecting terrorists is to look for patterns of activity indicative of terrorist plots based on observations of current plots and past terrorist attacks including estimates about how terrorists will adapt to avoid detection Our fundamental hypothesis is if terrorists plan to launch an attack the plot must involve people the terrorists their financiers and so forth The transactions all these people 1540 7993 06 20 00 2006 IEEE IEEE SECURITY PRIVACY Data Surveillance conduct will manifest in databases owned by public commercial and government sectors and will leave a signature detectable clues in the information space Because terrorists operate worldwide data associated with their activities will be mixed with data about people who aren t terrorists If the government wants access to this activity data then it must also have some way to protect the privacy of those who aren t involved in terrorism This hypothesis has several inherent critical challenges First can counterterrorism analysts imagine and understand the numerous signatures that terrorist plans plots and activities will create Second if they do understand these signatures can analysts detect them when they re embedded in a world of information noise before the attacks happen in this context noise refers to transactions corresponding to nonterrorists Finally can analysts detect these signatures without adversely violating the privacy or civil liberties of nonterrorists Ultimately the goal should be to understand the level of improvement possible in our counterterrorism capabilities if the government could use advanced information technologies and access a greater portion of the information space but also consider the impact if any on policies such as privacy and then mitigate this impact with privacyprotection technology and corresponding policy 2 3 Countering terrorism Information technology plays a crucial role and is a major tenet of our counterterrorism strategy because it ultimately has to make sense out of and connect the relatively few and sparse dots embedded within the massive amounts of information potentially available to and already flowing into the government s intelligence and counterterrorism agencies Numerous information technologies can help intelligence analysts detect and understand the clues terrorists leave behind when plotting their next move In the simplest terms these technologies fall into one of two broad categories collections and analytics Figure 1 provides a simple illustration of this counterterrorism framework For collections we won t discuss the vast array of sensor technologies that fall within this category here instead see Table 1 p 27 which provides a sample of the authorization provided to the US intelligence community for its foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence data collections For analytics key intelligence tools include collaboration text analysis and decision aides natural language processing in particular speech to text transcription and foreign to English translation pattern analysis and predictive anticipatory modeling These