http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0405/042905nj1.htmApril 29, 2005
DHS chief floats idea of collecting private citizens' information
By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal
Call it Total Information Awareness, homeland-style.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious people to his department.
The idea, which Chertoff tossed out at an April 27 meeting with security-industry officials, is reminiscent of the Defense Department's now-dead Total Information Awareness program that sought to sift though heaps of foreign intelligence information to root out potential terrorist activity.
According to one techie who attended the April 27 meeting, Chertoff told the group, "Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people's activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the nonprofit could give us the names."
Chertoff also suggested that private industry form a group to collect proprietary information about cyber- and other infrastructure-security breaches from companies; scrub it of identifying information; aggregate it; and pass it along to the department. The financial services industry already has such a group.
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