Excellent! Very, very funny. Ah, those pesky olives. And how in the world do you know when you’ve got the right one? Hmm, well, then, might as well haul in a whole bunch of ‘em! And olives don’t have any annoying civil liberties. BTW, under transactional data, did you notice this heading: “Veterinary”??? So, my God, now I’m not even safe with my cats?? Good grief.
At least people can be fired. Imagine each elbow in that diagram becoming calcified with incompetent un-fire-able federal employees… Safeguards the dems were filibustering for…
Whoa, does that ever bring back bad memories from my time in the belly of the beast! After I left the Navy, I briefly worked as a Gov contractor for an agency that was supposed to support the Nav. In fact, it was a pure pork jobs program that often impaired the Navy’s effectiveness, and very expensively to boot. The powerpoint slide you linked to is exactly the kind of eye chart that agency would use to try and secure yet more funding from its legeslative benefactors. For some reason, the so called civilian leadership at my former place of employ thought that the more complex a chart was, the better the idea was. That was probably because complexity implied jobs, which meant money for the agency and votes for the leges who brought home the bacon.
I get intuitive feelings about these kinds of things, and I never liked the sound or look of ‘Homeland Security’, and I never felt confident regarding the look of Tom Ridge’s face. He looks ‘cowed’. And, for that matter, I havn’t been liking the gallery of vain poses I’ve been seeing W strike. For instance in his running gear. I fear vanity could get at his common-sense and overtake it.
I can’t remember where I read/heard it, but this a research project and is not proposed to put into effect. I have no objections to the research, but I wouldn’t want it to be made mandatory.
The idea of national I.D. etc, doesn’t bother me as much as the rest of you, because it would be very attractive to be able to prove quickly that I’m not a threat and so they don’t need to delay me or search me.
I doubt that this will ever be implemented. If it is, there will have to be plenty of safeguards against its misuse should we be foolish enough to elect another Nixon, Clinton or Harding.
At least people can be fired. Imagine each elbow in that diagram becoming calcified with incompetent un-fire-able federal employees… Safeguards the dems were filibustering for…
Yeah, instead they’ll be political appointees. Boy, that’s just so much better.
There’s no way for an agency to do domestic intelligence work to detect terrorists without collecting a large amount of data without knowing ahead of time which data will turn out to be useful. It makes no sense to simultaneously complain about the lack of ability of the agencies to collect and compare data (the standard “they should have been able to identify the terrorists before 9/11″ complaint) and then to turn around and complain about privacy invasion when they try to do so. Certainly there should be some limits on what kinds of data they can collect. But it will be very difficult to detect terrorists without collecting a lot of data on a lot of people and then looking for anomalies between the vast majority and some small numbers of people who might turn out to be terrorists.
Actually, Glenn, a lot of diagrams you find in the private sector aren’t any more complicated that that, and I’ve seen ones that are a lot MORE complicated. Comparing it to a Rube Goldberg device may be unfair.
Besides, the Rube Goldberg device you chose was not particularly complicated, as Rube Goldberg devices go.
That federal diagram is just so out of date! In my job in the Florida state bureaucracy, we’ve eliminated the rectangles and circles and diamonds and replaced them with nice fuzzy clouds, to indicate that no clearly definable borders exist between functions and departments. Or between one bureaucrat and the next. Resistance IS futile. You will be fuzzy-logicked into submission.
I’ve never understood why they were called “intelligence agencies” in the first place. Spy Kidds maybe, but intelligent, hardly. Just another place to put leftover Aff Act folks with no place to go.
Intelligence types can’t win. When they’re successful it’s like the car wreck you didn’t get in this evening.
To the person who addressed my quote: first of all, I’m a genius, so be careful with promiscuous responses. Second of all, whoever is working in the place, the fact that they can be fired is encouraging.
Actually, the first diagram reminds me of the US Department of Paperwork (except it’s missing the sole working individual). Ridge is of an age to remember the National Association of Professional Bureaucrats (NATAPROBU: “When in doubt, Delegate”). How much did that organizational chart color this new Department’s?
I am reassured that this is no threat to my civil liberties. Complex systems that work are built up from simple components that are proven to work. A complex system built in one pass has no chance of working.
Second of all, whoever is working in the place, the fact that they can be fired is encouraging.
You mean like al those people who got fired for September 11th? Since Bush (like Clinton, I expect) won’t fire anyone, we might as well keep him from appointing all his frat buddies from Yale.
Your slithering about. No one can’t force these politicians and federal imployees to not be incompetent in every way it’s conceivable to be incompetent, yet that doesn’t lessen the positive that people CAN be fired.
See, I’m thinking of the beast who gets referred to the agency from the D.C. welfare office, and then once on the payroll with all the union protection, threatens ‘action’ if anyone complains she spends more time dealing with her ‘fibermyalgia’ – which has been recognized by medicaid as giving her handicapped status, though she’s still going to troup on – than she spends time on actual Homeland Security work.
Boy, this thing has “big consulting firm” written all over it.
When something requires “novel methods”, “revolutionary algorithms”, “innovative new sources”, I start thinking of all the fresh out of college, never coded a day in their life kids who are going to be working 80-100 hour work weeks for managers who have little or no technical background themselves. It will fail spectacularly, but not until tens of millions have been spent, dozens of burned out coders have been fired or quit and a number of partners have bought themselves new boats.
The phrase that stood out for me was “create innovative new sources” of data. What could that possibly entail? Every purchase you make (what you buy), every move you make (where you live), every step you take (if you carry a cell-phone) and all your non face-to-face communication is ALREADY available somewhere. About the only thing left is active surveillance and mind-probes.
And what’s with the Latin? As if the freaky Masonic logo wasn’t bad enough, they add a creepy Latin motto?
Of course, “Poindexter” is Latin as well. “Poin” means “prick” and “dexter” means “right”, so I guess the TIA is being headed by a right prick… >grin<
That’s weird… Who’d be knocking on my door at this time of night? I’ll be right ba
The weapons of mass destruction we face are no laughing matter. As intrusive as it is, from my standpoint, it will be less intrusive than what the credit agencies do, or the telemarketers.
I work in NYC, so if the yget a nuke or something in, this could be the last line of defense between me and an early grave.
As a dbase developer, seeing as what they are doing…well, they are going to have some much crap on thier hands its going to take forever to get anything useful. It would be too costly for someone to abuse this system, considering the sheer resources involved in a single query. Thats really pretty good protection, since it will mostly likely need to be run by committee to make sure the dbase spends its times bringing greater understanding of the threats we face.
I woud be surprised if they could get more than 2 -3 queries (SELECT) successfully completed a day.
I agree or at least sympathize with Randall Parker’s comment. However, I have to wonder whether all this data collection is a substitute for adequate human intelligence. The populations terrorists are likely to spring from are pretty specific; the planned TIA involves a huge amount of collecting data from a huge number of people we know now are not going to be involved in terrorism or anything like it. I claim no expertise in this field, but this looks a little to me like an agency unable to do what needs to be done proposing to do what it knows how to do.
I have to say also that the choice of John Poindexter, a man known to be personally untrustworthy and willing to resist oversight from Congress, is highly objectionable. This is not a man with a record of success in important jobs; his notable talent is a talent for bureaucratic warfare; and multiple felony convictions, even if overturned on a technicality, seem to me sufficient reason to bar this man from any federal employment, let alone a job of this significance.
As a point of interest, I seem to recall my grandmother telling me she had seen models of some of Rube’s simpler devices. He wanted to be sure they would actually work, which is probably more than can be said about the other item under consideration
This will be completely ineffective at catching terrorists. Anyone can think of ways to spoof the system. (for a start, can you say “buy things with cash?”) It will, however, be quite effective at harrassing lawabiding citzens who either 1) do things that the supercomputers don’t like: perhaps they buy too much pita bread, or ammo, or whatever, or 2) fall into groups that the politicos of the moment don’t like (libertarians, environmentalists, “gun nuts”, etc. – depends on who is in power). For instance, imagine it’s 2010 and President Hillary decides that all gun owners need to have a brief interview with the FBI. So, have the database spit out a list of names it considers potential “gun owners” and start knocking on their doors.
Bush is ultimately responsible for this nonsense and is really losing me here.
Dude, think of how it would be set up if a democrat was doing the setting up. First up: ‘Agency for the Detection of Christian Thoughts’. Then, ‘Homeland Security Division for the Investigation of Hate Crimes Against People of Arab or General Middle-Eastern Background’. Maybe then an offshoot that is ‘terror-related’: ‘Homeland Security Division for the Monitoring of Republican Operatives During All Elections’…
Arthur Silber says:
Excellent! Very, very funny. Ah, those pesky olives. And how in the world do you know when you’ve got the right one? Hmm, well, then, might as well haul in a whole bunch of ‘em! And olives don’t have any annoying civil liberties. BTW, under transactional data, did you notice this heading: “Veterinary”??? So, my God, now I’m not even safe with my cats?? Good grief.
November 27, 2002, 4:18 pmNatalie Drest says:
It was either a Rube Goldberg device I was expecting to see or that organizational chart that was developed for Hillary’s Health Care Plan.
November 27, 2002, 4:25 pmct says:
At least people can be fired. Imagine each elbow in that diagram becoming calcified with incompetent un-fire-able federal employees… Safeguards the dems were filibustering for…
November 27, 2002, 4:29 pmBarry Harkness says:
Was it written by the same guys who made the SPAM MAP?
November 27, 2002, 4:31 pmAlex says:
Whoa, does that ever bring back bad memories from my time in the belly of the beast! After I left the Navy, I briefly worked as a Gov contractor for an agency that was supposed to support the Nav. In fact, it was a pure pork jobs program that often impaired the Navy’s effectiveness, and very expensively to boot. The powerpoint slide you linked to is exactly the kind of eye chart that agency would use to try and secure yet more funding from its legeslative benefactors. For some reason, the so called civilian leadership at my former place of employ thought that the more complex a chart was, the better the idea was. That was probably because complexity implied jobs, which meant money for the agency and votes for the leges who brought home the bacon.
November 27, 2002, 4:37 pmct says:
I get intuitive feelings about these kinds of things, and I never liked the sound or look of ‘Homeland Security’, and I never felt confident regarding the look of Tom Ridge’s face. He looks ‘cowed’. And, for that matter, I havn’t been liking the gallery of vain poses I’ve been seeing W strike. For instance in his running gear. I fear vanity could get at his common-sense and overtake it.
November 27, 2002, 4:39 pmAST says:
I can’t remember where I read/heard it, but this a research project and is not proposed to put into effect. I have no objections to the research, but I wouldn’t want it to be made mandatory.
The idea of national I.D. etc, doesn’t bother me as much as the rest of you, because it would be very attractive to be able to prove quickly that I’m not a threat and so they don’t need to delay me or search me.
I doubt that this will ever be implemented. If it is, there will have to be plenty of safeguards against its misuse should we be foolish enough to elect another Nixon, Clinton or Harding.
November 27, 2002, 5:07 pmAndrew Edwards says:
At least people can be fired. Imagine each elbow in that diagram becoming calcified with incompetent un-fire-able federal employees… Safeguards the dems were filibustering for…
Yeah, instead they’ll be political appointees. Boy, that’s just so much better.
November 27, 2002, 5:14 pmSean Hackbarth says:
How is TIA suppose to work? I stared at that flow chart for some time and think I’m made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
November 27, 2002, 5:31 pmRandall Parker says:
There’s no way for an agency to do domestic intelligence work to detect terrorists without collecting a large amount of data without knowing ahead of time which data will turn out to be useful. It makes no sense to simultaneously complain about the lack of ability of the agencies to collect and compare data (the standard “they should have been able to identify the terrorists before 9/11″ complaint) and then to turn around and complain about privacy invasion when they try to do so. Certainly there should be some limits on what kinds of data they can collect. But it will be very difficult to detect terrorists without collecting a lot of data on a lot of people and then looking for anomalies between the vast majority and some small numbers of people who might turn out to be terrorists.
November 27, 2002, 5:46 pmM. Smith says:
Actually, Glenn, a lot of diagrams you find in the private sector aren’t any more complicated that that, and I’ve seen ones that are a lot MORE complicated. Comparing it to a Rube Goldberg device may be unfair.
Besides, the Rube Goldberg device you chose was not particularly complicated, as Rube Goldberg devices go.
November 27, 2002, 5:57 pmRobert Speirs says:
That federal diagram is just so out of date! In my job in the Florida state bureaucracy, we’ve eliminated the rectangles and circles and diamonds and replaced them with nice fuzzy clouds, to indicate that no clearly definable borders exist between functions and departments. Or between one bureaucrat and the next. Resistance IS futile. You will be fuzzy-logicked into submission.
November 27, 2002, 6:11 pmRobert Speirs says:
Hey, what’s with the comments? Going all interactive on us?
November 27, 2002, 6:12 pmLynn Carrier says:
Hee
I like the broken link.
Honesty in system design?
Lynn Carrier
November 27, 2002, 6:55 pmMike D. says:
where do you find this stuff?
November 27, 2002, 7:15 pmbob in the hills says:
I’ve never understood why they were called “intelligence agencies” in the first place. Spy Kidds maybe, but intelligent, hardly. Just another place to put leftover Aff Act folks with no place to go.
November 27, 2002, 7:17 pmct says:
Intelligence types can’t win. When they’re successful it’s like the car wreck you didn’t get in this evening.
To the person who addressed my quote: first of all, I’m a genius, so be careful with promiscuous responses. Second of all, whoever is working in the place, the fact that they can be fired is encouraging.
November 27, 2002, 7:55 pmGreen Bear says:
Actually, the first diagram reminds me of the US Department of Paperwork (except it’s missing the sole working individual). Ridge is of an age to remember the National Association of Professional Bureaucrats (NATAPROBU: “When in doubt, Delegate”). How much did that organizational chart color this new Department’s?
November 27, 2002, 8:41 pmFred Boness says:
I am reassured that this is no threat to my civil liberties. Complex systems that work are built up from simple components that are proven to work. A complex system built in one pass has no chance of working.
November 27, 2002, 9:00 pmAndrew Edwards says:
Second of all, whoever is working in the place, the fact that they can be fired is encouraging.
You mean like al those people who got fired for September 11th? Since Bush (like Clinton, I expect) won’t fire anyone, we might as well keep him from appointing all his frat buddies from Yale.
November 27, 2002, 9:06 pmct says:
Your slithering about. No one can’t force these politicians and federal imployees to not be incompetent in every way it’s conceivable to be incompetent, yet that doesn’t lessen the positive that people CAN be fired.
See, I’m thinking of the beast who gets referred to the agency from the D.C. welfare office, and then once on the payroll with all the union protection, threatens ‘action’ if anyone complains she spends more time dealing with her ‘fibermyalgia’ – which has been recognized by medicaid as giving her handicapped status, though she’s still going to troup on – than she spends time on actual Homeland Security work.
November 27, 2002, 10:01 pmBrian Erst says:
Boy, this thing has “big consulting firm” written all over it.
When something requires “novel methods”, “revolutionary algorithms”, “innovative new sources”, I start thinking of all the fresh out of college, never coded a day in their life kids who are going to be working 80-100 hour work weeks for managers who have little or no technical background themselves. It will fail spectacularly, but not until tens of millions have been spent, dozens of burned out coders have been fired or quit and a number of partners have bought themselves new boats.
The phrase that stood out for me was “create innovative new sources” of data. What could that possibly entail? Every purchase you make (what you buy), every move you make (where you live), every step you take (if you carry a cell-phone) and all your non face-to-face communication is ALREADY available somewhere. About the only thing left is active surveillance and mind-probes.
And what’s with the Latin? As if the freaky Masonic logo wasn’t bad enough, they add a creepy Latin motto?
Of course, “Poindexter” is Latin as well. “Poin” means “prick” and “dexter” means “right”, so I guess the TIA is being headed by a right prick… >grin<
That’s weird… Who’d be knocking on my door at this time of night? I’ll be right ba
November 27, 2002, 10:21 pmnp says:
Where did you go, Brian?
The same agency is funding the development of mind-probes.
November 27, 2002, 10:55 pmBrian says:
The weapons of mass destruction we face are no laughing matter. As intrusive as it is, from my standpoint, it will be less intrusive than what the credit agencies do, or the telemarketers.
I work in NYC, so if the yget a nuke or something in, this could be the last line of defense between me and an early grave.
As a dbase developer, seeing as what they are doing…well, they are going to have some much crap on thier hands its going to take forever to get anything useful. It would be too costly for someone to abuse this system, considering the sheer resources involved in a single query. Thats really pretty good protection, since it will mostly likely need to be run by committee to make sure the dbase spends its times bringing greater understanding of the threats we face.
I woud be surprised if they could get more than 2 -3 queries (SELECT) successfully completed a day.
November 27, 2002, 11:22 pmJoseph Britt says:
I agree or at least sympathize with Randall Parker’s comment. However, I have to wonder whether all this data collection is a substitute for adequate human intelligence. The populations terrorists are likely to spring from are pretty specific; the planned TIA involves a huge amount of collecting data from a huge number of people we know now are not going to be involved in terrorism or anything like it. I claim no expertise in this field, but this looks a little to me like an agency unable to do what needs to be done proposing to do what it knows how to do.
I have to say also that the choice of John Poindexter, a man known to be personally untrustworthy and willing to resist oversight from Congress, is highly objectionable. This is not a man with a record of success in important jobs; his notable talent is a talent for bureaucratic warfare; and multiple felony convictions, even if overturned on a technicality, seem to me sufficient reason to bar this man from any federal employment, let alone a job of this significance.
November 27, 2002, 11:52 pmDrew Kelley says:
At least the RUBE GOLDBERG has the potential to actually accomplish something.
November 28, 2002, 12:43 amRR Ryan says:
As a point of interest, I seem to recall my grandmother telling me she had seen models of some of Rube’s simpler devices. He wanted to be sure they would actually work, which is probably more than can be said about the other item under consideration
November 28, 2002, 2:12 pmdude says:
This will be completely ineffective at catching terrorists. Anyone can think of ways to spoof the system. (for a start, can you say “buy things with cash?”) It will, however, be quite effective at harrassing lawabiding citzens who either 1) do things that the supercomputers don’t like: perhaps they buy too much pita bread, or ammo, or whatever, or 2) fall into groups that the politicos of the moment don’t like (libertarians, environmentalists, “gun nuts”, etc. – depends on who is in power). For instance, imagine it’s 2010 and President Hillary decides that all gun owners need to have a brief interview with the FBI. So, have the database spit out a list of names it considers potential “gun owners” and start knocking on their doors.
Bush is ultimately responsible for this nonsense and is really losing me here.
November 28, 2002, 2:57 pmct says:
Dude, think of how it would be set up if a democrat was doing the setting up. First up: ‘Agency for the Detection of Christian Thoughts’. Then, ‘Homeland Security Division for the Investigation of Hate Crimes Against People of Arab or General Middle-Eastern Background’. Maybe then an offshoot that is ‘terror-related’: ‘Homeland Security Division for the Monitoring of Republican Operatives During All Elections’…
November 28, 2002, 4:54 pm