Mining For Terroists, But Sometimes Finding Innocents

Credit: Jupiter Images

           
            In the age of global terrorism, countries around the world are always preparing for, and thwarting, the next attack.  To accomplish the job of protecting society, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have developed ways to identify, track, and stop those who would commit terrorist acts. 
            One of the new systems for identifying potential terrorists, Dark Web Project, was developed by a team of researchers at the University of Tucson (J. Laudon & Laudon, 2012).  The Dark Web Project combs the Internet looking for communications with keywords that would suggest an individual is a potential terrorist threat (DW-TV, 2008).  With this information, the program creates a visual plot that is as unique as a human fingerprint, allowing investigators to track the movement of suspects as they move throughout the Internet (DW-TV, 2008).
            But programs such as this can also ensnare innocent individuals.  German sociology professor Andrej Holm is just one such individual (J. Laudon & Laudon, 2012).  Holm served 3 weeks in solitary confinement in a German jail, and was under 24 hour surveillance after a portion of his work was used by a terrorist group who claimed responsibility for the burning of police vehicles (DW-TV, 2008). 
            Unlike humans, computers cannot yet reason and therefore are prone to creating, and insinuating to investigators, connections that create situations such as Holm’s.  Cases such as Holm’s, and the development of software to search for potential terrorist, leave society in a delicate position to balance the need for security, and the right to privacy.

References

DW-TV (Producer), & DW-TV (Director). (2008). Online surveillance software / data mining. [Video/DVD] DW-TV / WYBE.

Laudon, J., & Laudon, K. (2012). Management information systems (12th ed.). New York, NY: Prentice Hall.