When Private Data Collection Becomes Government Spying
In a recent article in Intercept, we learn that the CIA is now hiring the services of private firms that offer digital spying.
SOFT ROBOTS THAT can grasp delicate objects, computer algorithms designed to spot an "insider threat," and artificial intelligence that will sift through large data sets -- these are just a few of the technologies being pursued by companies with investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, according to a document obtained by The Intercept.Yet among the 38 previously undisclosed companies receiving In-Q-Tel funding, the research focus that stands out is social media mining and surveillance; the portfolio document lists several tech companies pursuing work in this area, including Dataminr, Geofeedia, PATHAR, and TransVoyant.
The CIA is supposed to limit its spying to foreigners or Americans dealing with foreigners. Of course, anyone who believes that the CIA is restricted is terminally naïve.
In a world of Kevin Bacon connections, we are all targets.
But I still find this interesting. The CIA has to enlist the support of private firms. These firms have the algorithms to enable the CIA to find out what it going on.
The spying is now universal. It will never cease. It will only increase. It is privately funded. The CIA is playing catch-up. It always will.
There are a few people who are willing to re-structure their lives to reduce the degree of spying on them. My guess is that this is under 1% of the population in the West. We have long since surrendered our privacy online. People post opinions on Facebook that my generation would have known better than to say in public. A casual remark might be passed on, though probably not. In contrast, digits are forever.
The latest round of In-Q-Tel investments comes as the CIA has revamped its outreach to Silicon Valley, establishing a new wing, the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which is tasked with developing and deploying cutting-edge solutions by directly engaging the private sector. The directorate is working closely with In-Q-Tel to integrate the latest technology into agency-wide intelligence capabilities.
The Directorate of Digital Innovation. I love it! It's Orwell without a sense of irony.
How sophisticated are these firms? Very.
Dataminr directly licenses a stream of data from Twitter to visualize and quickly spot trends on behalf of law enforcement agencies and hedge funds, among other clients.Geofeedia collects geotagged social media messages to monitor breaking news events in real time. Geofeedia specializes in collecting geotagged social media messages, from platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, to monitor breaking news events in real time. The company, which counts dozens of local law enforcement agencies as clients, markets its ability to track activist protests on behalf of both corporate interests and police departments.
PATHAR mines social media to determine networks of association. PATHAR's product, Dunami, is used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to "mine Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media to determine networks of association, centers of influence and potential signs of radicalization," according to an investigation by Reveal.
Someone besides the CIA is paying big bucks for such information. My guess is that the people paying also have algorithms to sort through the data they are buying.
They are looking for patterns. Patterns let them predict aggregate customer behavior. This is entrepreneurship: buying low ("my competitors didn't spot the pattern") and selling high ("my competitors will soon be out of business").
This is sophistication far beyond what small businessmen possess.
Bruce Lund, a senior member of In-Q-Tel's technical staff, noted in a 2012 paper that "monitoring social media" is increasingly essential for government agencies seeking to keep track of "erupting political movements, crises, epidemics, and disasters, not to mention general global trends."The recent wave of investments in social media-related companies suggests the CIA has accelerated the drive to make collection of user-generated online data a priority. Alongside its investments in start-ups, In-Q-Tel has also developed a special technology laboratory in Silicon Valley, called Lab41, to provide tools for the intelligence community to connect the dots in large sets of data.
In February, Lab41 published an article exploring the ways in which a Twitter user's location could be predicted with a degree of certainty through the location of the user's friends.
The CIA can buy all the data its budget can tolerate. It will still be paralyzed by internal bureaucratic restrictions. Employees will still prefer to play things safe. No one ever gets fired for not putting the employing bureaucracy at risk. Doing nothing is always safe. Doing something that backfires in full public view can end a career. This will always be true in every bureaucracy after the first generation retires.
"When you have private companies deciding which algorithms get you a so-called threat score, or make you a person of interest, there's obviously room for targeting people based on viewpoints or even unlawfully targeting people based on race or religion," said Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.She added that there is a dangerous trend toward government relying on tech companies to "build massive dossiers on people" using "nothing but constitutionally protected speech."
Sorry. Too late. Way too late.
We will be protected by the inherent conservatism of bureaucracy: the fear of making a mistake.
If the CIA ever wants to get you, you're as good as gotten. But perceptive people knew that in 1947. The methods were cruder then, but just as effective. The phrase "terminally naïve" was literal.
Here is the law of demand: "When the price falls, more is demanded." The price of spying will fall. Moore's law will prevail. Lots more will be demanded.