The invisible terrorist
I and others have been saying this for awhile--terrorists are increasingly difficult, if not impossible to profile. An article in today's Washington Post details why and gives several examples of non-stereotypical Muslim terrorists. More and more of them are Christian, blue-eyed and don't wear veils. The Post interviews sseveral European police officials who flat out say that profiling is no longer good enough to catch terrorists.
Yet, the United States is sinking big, big money into profiling systems like the old TIA and TANGRAM and numerous other data fusion/profiling systems. Why?
There is only reason -- America believes that it's right and everyone else is wrong and that this country can make workable profilng systems.
The only kind of profiling system that is likely to work consistently is not one that evaluates immutable attributes like race and religion and birth place, because these can all be worked around by recruiting outside the normal ranks. The kind that will work is the kind that looks at "psychographics", not "demographics." What they need to profile is ideology, not background. And to this, the government will need orders of magnitude more personal information than they do for traditional profiling systems. They will need to know what everyone buys, eats and where they go. The ultimate goal is to understand what we are all thinking. And I do mean everyone, because in this new world, all of us, Muslim or not, born in the Mideast or right here in the USA--all of us are suspected terrorists. Unfortunately for us it will be easier to get that kind of data on citizens than visitors.
To accomplish this goal, the United States government will need an unprecedented amount of visibility into the everyday lives, habits and opinions of every single American.
Posted on March 12, 2007
