Mining.

This is coolbert:

Yet more on data mining.

The esteemed attorney Newton Minow is being interviewed about the subject on National Public Radio [NPR].

Minow has been a hitter on the national scene since the early 1960's. Was head of the Federal Communications Commission [FCC]. Appointed to that position by President Kennedy [Minow DOES go back a long way].

Is famous for his statement that television, "is a vast wasteland".

Is also knowledgeable with regard to data mining [Minow's legal expertise seems to be in the area of telecommunications law]. The controversial method now being used, evidently, to track down terrorists.

Minow chaired a committee in 1999 for President Clinton that looked at the subject of data mining with regard how to safeguard "privacy" while still being able to data mine data bases for intelligence.

Minow, being an attorney, would seem to be suitably qualified to chair such a committee.

Minow, during the NPR interview, makes the assertion that the nineteen 9/11 hijackers could all be linked using data mining and SEVEN clicks of the mouse.

The particular key to tracking and linking the nineteen 9/11 hijackers using data mining techniques, according to Minow, was Mihdhar and Hamzi. Two Al Qaeda operatives discovered, tracked, and observed at a "conference" in Malaysia. These two disreputables at some later date found to have entered the U.S. for some unknown purpose. That purpose, of course, was later found out to be the 9/11 attacks.

[the fact that Mihdhar and Hamzi were in the U.S. was evidently passed by the CIA to the FBI. However, it seems nothing was really done with this information. It is known that a FBI informant was "rooming" with the two terrorists. So one can infer that the lack of interference was a desire on the part of the FBI to merely "observe" and NOT acted upon!!??]

Merely "linking" Mihdhar and Hamzi to the other hijackers using seven clicks of the mouse would not have been sufficient AT THE TIME!! Linkage of ITSELF would not have revealed the 9/11 plot. A lot more investigation of a surreptitious nature MIGHT have revealed the hijacking plots. But this would have been a big job, taking time and resources.

Presumably other persons besides the other hijackers would have been "linked" to Mihdhar and Hamzi. We NOW ONLY ASSOCIATE THEM WITH THE OTHER HIJACKERS AND THE PLOT IS CLEAR TO US, BUT ONLY AFTER THE FACT.

CONNECTING THE DOTS USING DATA MINING IS EASY AFTER THE FACT. IF YOU KNOW WHAT THE PLOT WAS AFTER THE FACT, IT IS EASY TO SEE THE "CONNECTIONS". NOT EASY BEFORE THE FACT. DATA MINING IN AND OF ITSELF IS A TOOL, AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE ONLY A TOOL.

An EFFECTIVE tool!!!

[OH, and how did the CIA come to know about this terrorist "conference" in Malaysia?]

How were they able to identify, located, track, and observe [the actual observation was done by Malaysian authorities], Mihdhar and Hamzi!!??

Through an intercepted telephone conversation.

And what was the key to this intercept?

A telephone number found on the person of another Al Qaeda operative that was captured!! The same type of telephone numbers so at question today in the purported National Security Agency [NSA] "spy scandal"!!]

coolbert.