The Old Blog in the Desert

There’s no doubt that the Department of Homeland Security is now a domestic intelligence and surveillance agency. It’s no longer interested in simply gathering your biometric data – you know – your fingerprints, DNA, face, eye and hair color, height, weight, age, race and sex.

Such low-tech collections are generally used for identification purposes. However, DHS is going high-tech, spending $40 million of our federal tax dollars to fund a quantitative analysis (QA) program.

This QA program will collect data from open sources like social media, cell phones, smart-meters, etc., storing it in databases, then using algorithms, scan, organize, find patterns, and direct analysts to so-called ‘high priority data points.’ Simply put, this means DHS will be able to learn anything it wants about anyone at anytime.

Welcome to our brave new world.