New Reports Finds Extensive Data Mining By Feds
A GAO report and a private report that each looked at unclassified data mining programs within the federal government revealed that 52 agencies had 199 data mining projects active or in the planning stages. One hundred and twenty-two of them use the personal information of American citizens. Private companies, which included credit reporting agencies and credit card issuers, supplied information for 54 government projects. Personally identifiable information on Americans was used by 36 of the 54 projects. The Defense Department had the largest number of projects, not all of which were focused on finding terrorists or criminals.
GAO: Fed Data Mining Extensive, Wired News, May 27, 2004
