Missed this the first time round, back in October Slashdot:
“According to a USA Today story, the terror watch list has swollen to 755,000 with 200,000 people per year being added since 2004. Adding about 548 people daily every day of the year does not seem to lend itself to a manual process with careful deliberation given or double checking being done for each person added. It seems to suggests that data is being mined from somewhere to automatically add names to the list.”
Boing Boing adds:
They are quickly galloping towards the million mark — a mark of real distinction because the list is already cumbersome and is approaching absolutely useless,” said Tim Sparapani of the American Civil Liberties Union.
A million potential terrorists? Come on. That’s a lot of beds to look under and chickenhawk panties to wet. Why don’t they make it simple for themselves?
Why not just surveill everybody?
Oh, wait….
Front page
a simple mathematical model...
Lambert—
A simple mathematical model of almost anything they would want to screen for the watch list would have the effort required to actually do anything with the hits increasing faster than linearly, likely N^2.
Or, even in the linear case, for a simple constant effort, doubling the number of targets you track halves the amount of effort you can invest in each one to determine if there is a threat and what needs to be done.
We are screwed, not just because they will soon be (that’s a joke about tense) tracking most of us, but because that means any threats that are out there become much less likely to be identified.