Hi Mike!

Just came across a story in the Christian Science Monitor that describes a three-year project run through the Department of Homeland Security to do massive data-mining of blogs and other website traffic. The article provides more explanation as to how the guy directing the firm that does the Department of Homeland Security's computer intelligence is running a "Sunlight Foundation" project that is creating its own public website about government accountability, one that is then trolled by DHS software and that has captured this site--blogged earlier.

According to the article's author Mark Clayton,

The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding.

Notice that the name of the program below is "Starlight," and the foundation run by Mike Klein from SRA International (which manages DHS software) is "Sunlight":

At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

The entire article is fascinating. Will this catch terrorists, or will this lead to new strategies for terrorist internet browsing more money for Klein and his military-industrial complex parasites? For one nasty consequence of ADVICE, read here, about how a homegrown film review site was shut down when the DHS raided their firm's server and took the hard drive. (image from mikeklein.com)