[iwar] [fc:Congressman.Says.Data.Mining.Could.Have.Prevented.9-11]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-27 20:23:21


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Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 20:23:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Congressman.Says.Data.Mining.Could.Have.Prevented.9-11]
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Congressman Says Data Mining Could Have Prevented 9-11


By DAN VERTON &lt;mailto:<a href="mailto:DAN_VERTON@COMPUTERWORLD.COM?Subject=Re:%20(ai)%20Congressman%20Says%20Data%20Mining%20Could%20Have%20Prevented%209-11%2526In-Reply-To=%2526lt;379A8DC2FD20134CBC091ED3E135B0F370DB5A@RMTVA-XVC01.info.trw.com">DAN_VE
RTON@COMPUTERWORLD.COM</a> 
 
AUGUST 26, 2002
 	  	 
  &lt;http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/images/clear.gif 
	  &lt;http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/images/clear.gif 
	  &lt;http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/images/clear.gif 
	  &lt;http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/images/clear.gif 
	
 	   &lt;http://www.computerworld.com/computerworld/images/clear.gif 
	Philadelphia 

Legislation that Congress failed to adopt two years ago would have
created an interagency data-mining capability that could have detected
and helped prevent last September's terrorist attacks, a senior
Republican congressman asserted last week. 

Speaking near his home district at the Information Sharing &amp;
Homeland Security conference here, Rep.  Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) lambasted
the federal government, including Congress, for failing to act on
critical data-mining and intelligence integration proposals that he and
others authored years before the terrorist attacks. 

"There are 33 classified agency systems in the federal government, but
none of them link their raw data together," said Weldon, chairman of the
House Subcommittee on Military Research and Development.  "We could have
and should have had a better data-fusion capability on and before 9-11."

Weldon referred specifically to a governmentwide data-mining agency he
proposed two years ago as part of the fiscal 2001 Department of Defense
budget.  The National Operations and Analysis Hub would have been
responsible for supporting the intelligence community in developing
threat profiles of terrorists and global hot spots. 

According to Weldon, he briefed John Hamre, then deputy secretary of
defense, on the idea, and Hamre agreed to fund the new agency. 

But "on Sept.  11, that capability did not exist, and we paid the
price," said Weldon. 


His plan had been to model the agency after the Army's Land Information
Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, Va., which Weldon credits with
having one of the most effective operations for mining publicly
available information in the intelligence community. 

Weldon said he turned to the LIWA in 1999, when the CIA failed to
deliver information he needed to negotiate the terms of Russia's
participation in Kosovo peacekeeping operations.  The LIWA came through
with the information.  When word got out about the source, Weldon was
contacted by the FBI and the CIA, neither of which knew about the LIWA,
he said. 

Indeed, the government's information-sharing problems are in many ways
cultural, said Steve Cooper, CIO for the Office of Homeland Security. 
"I haven't seen a federal agency yet whose charter includes
collaboration with other federal agencies," said Cooper, who took on his
White House responsibilities in March. 

In any case, Weldon said he's convinced that a centralized data-mining
capability within the intelligence community would have gathered
indications and warnings that an attack was being planned. 

"We had never anticipated this type of incident," he said.  "The problem
was that the CIA didn't have data-mining technology to pore through
open-source information."


Weldon's comments by no means fell on deaf ears. 

"Congressman Weldon had a number of good ideas," said Philip Lago,
executive secretary of the CIA.  However, "what we have to deal with is
that there are 434 others like him [with their own ideas] in the House
of Representatives."

Other senior intelligence officials present during Weldon's keynote
speech acknowledged privately that Congress shares responsibility for
the shortcomings in the government's information-sharing efforts. 

For example, Congress recently denied the Bush administration's funding
request to establish a central integration office within the proposed
Department of Homeland Security.  "To the best of our information, they
don't believe it can be done," said Cooper. 

Source: Computerworld

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