Following 9/11, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was called upon by the 9/11 Commission to create a database housing different names associated with international terrorism. Since its conception the database has grown, and as of January 2008 there are over 500,000 names in the database. With 400,000 aliases as well. Interestingly enough, around 5% of the listings consist of US citizens.

When comprising a database this large there’s undoubtedly going to be some problems with it. These problems have been voiced by Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), on behalf of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee (that is one long name for a committee). If you wish to view the full letter, click here. The letter is addressed to Edward Maguire, Inspector General of the Director of National Intelligence. Rep. Miller’s problems “seem” valid enough. He states that the database doesn’t provide text based searches much like Google does with their engine. Instead the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) must be utilized with a complex SQL programming language. Therefore, if someone in the FBI is looking for information on a potential terrorist, they must type in a complex sentence instead of a name. The database is continually being updated by the CIA, NSA, the FBI, and other law enforcement organizations. Which is a concern to Rep. Miller because of long term quality control. He makes reference to an incident when the system crashed while trying to be used by the FBI Terrorist Screening Center.

All of these problems could be the reason why the NCTC is working towards a new database, “Railhead”. Rep. Miller voices his concern over the new database, mostly mentioning funding. Here is a quote from the letter on the problems of Railhead, “The Subcommittee has also learned that a critical NCTC initiative, named “Railhead”, which is intended to replace TIDE with enhanced capabilities has suffered from severe technical troubles, poor contractor management and weak government oversight. As a result, potentially hundreds of millioins of dollars have been wasted, delivery schedules have slipped, contractor employees have been laid off in order to restrain escalating costs, and the NCTC is now scrambling either to fix the technical problems or possibly to abandon the program altogether.”

Miller then goes on to state that $500 million budgeted to the Railhead program made its way to Boeing; to help renovate one of its buildings. If you think the connection is odd, Boeing is a contractor for the Railhead program.

Of course the NCTC has responded, with some gumption. They say that neither Miller or the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee have no interaction with TIDE or Railhead. They say that Miller’s claims are inconsistent with the facts.

This whole ordeal really saddens me. Going by Miller’s letter it all seems pretty legit, as he cites articles for most of his examples. The only thing I’m really fishy on is the $500 million Boeing mark. He only talks about “insiders” that gave him the information, so not entirely sure that can be trusted. Barring that though, everything he talks about is backed up with credible references.

If you want some problems closer to home with TIDE, then look to the “no-fly” list implemented by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). There have been more cited cases of unwarranted holding at airports because innocent people’s names have been on the no-fly list. Some of the more popular ones are Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), wife of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), who were both held at airports because their name appeared on the no-fly list. If you’re a fan of Boston Legal, there was an episode when the lovable, patriotic Denny Crane was stopped at an airport because his name was on the no-fly list.

After knowing all of this, I hope that the NCTC can pull their act together. This database is probably the single most important thing to the safety of this country. The fight against terrorism starts with information, and we need to be 100% sure we have the correct information. This would definitely be an interesting topic for the presumptive presidential candidates to debate on. Of course we’ll probably here about how McCain owns 15 houses instead of 7, and how Obama smoked weed when he was a teenager (gotta love the election season).

On a side note, I find it sad that this story has received no major media coverage. Instead we get to hear about Ted Kennedy raising the roof at the DNC , and more useless coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Atleast CNN didn’t forget to mention in it in this three paragraph long blog post. To be fair, all of the major news networks are responsible. I just can’t believe that something as important as this isn’t to be heard of anywhere, unless you happen to visit some blogs. Like mine, or the one I’m referencing.

[via: Ars Technica]

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