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Executive Summary
Pages 1-6

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From page 1...
... Further attacks by such groups, and indeed by domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, could be as serious as, or even more serious than, September 11 and Oklahoma City. Because future terrorist attacks on the United States could cause major casualties as well as severe economic and social disruption, the danger they pose is real, and it is serious.
From page 2...
... ; and • Terrorist groups will make calculated efforts to conceal their identity and mask their behaviors, and will use various strategies such as encryption, code words, and multiple identities to obfuscate the data they are generating and exchanging. Modern data collection and analysis techniques have had remarkable success in solving information-related problems in the commercial sector; for example, they have been successfully applied to detect consumer fraud.
From page 3...
... Everyone leaves personal digital tracks in these systems whenever he or she makes a purchase, takes a trip, uses a bank account, makes a phone call, walks past a security camera, obtains a prescription, sends or receives a package, files income tax forms, applies for a loan, e-mails a friend, sends a fax, rents a video, or engages in just about any other activity. The proliferation of security cameras and means of tagging and tracking people and objects increases the scope and nature of available data.
From page 4...
... The preliminary nature of the scientific evidence, the risk of false positives, and operational vulnerability to countermeasures argue for behavioral observation and physiological monitoring being used at most as a preliminary screening method for identifying individuals who merit additional follow-up investigation. Although laboratory research and development of techniques for automated, remote detection and assessment of anomalous behavior, for example deceptive behavior, may be justified, there is not a consensus within the relevant scientific community nor on the committee regarding whether any behavioral surveillance or physiological monitoring techniques are ready for use at all in the counterterrorist context given the present state of the science.
From page 5...
... Such review is especially necessary given that the committee found little evidence of any effective evaluation performed for current programs intended to detect terrorist activity by automated analysis of databases. (If such evidence does exist, it should be presented in the appropriate oversight forums as part of such review.)
From page 6...
... for counterterrorism. Such reviews should consider establishment of restrictions on how personal information can be used.


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