On March 28, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) posted this notice on FedBizOps.gov, titled “Investigative System”. If you click through and read the Statement of Work (SOW), you will find that that Investigative System is really a “massive online data repository system” that contains “public records and non-public/proprietary information”.
Anytime we see language like this from a government agency or politician, it’s a cause for further investigation, if not outright concern. So what about this case?
Overview
Here’s the full overview from the SOW:
In step with the vision of ATF to embrace and use leading-edge technology where appropriate, OSII utilizes a number of internal databases as well as external sources to provide timely and relevant information and intelligence products to law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels. Many of these tasks are performed manually, resulting in longer turnaround times on important information and intelligence research and analysis requests.
Sounds very reasonable so far, right? So what about the objectives (high level requirements) for the system?
Objectives
Here are the objectives of the SOW:
The objective of this effort is to obtain access to an online data repository system service comprised of public and proprietary records that contains a variety of data sources that can be utilized by Intelligence Analyst, Special Agents, Inspectors, Financial Investigators and Law Enforcement support staff to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.
A massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds through the use of automated external systems containing public records and non-public/proprietary information that provides a means to rapidly check records across the country is necessary in assisting investigators, agents and analyst to find people, their assets, relatives, associates and more.
ATF needs an online system that provides the following: nationwide utility data, expert plus search and extended law enforcement search capability, obtain exact matches from partial source data searches such as, incomplete social security numbers, address, VIN numbers, etc., phonetic name spelling, location radius, or age range, address mapping, conduct a linear search of an individual, ability to link structured and unstructured data to find connection points between two or more individuals.
File this one under interesting. Is this the beginning of a national registry that Democrats have wanted for a long time, as some on the internet are saying? At this point, I don’t think so, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.
Thank you for pointing this out. Mark my words, This is the start of something…BAD,VERY VERY BAD
I agree, it’s getting closer to that time when all that is left is to kiss your loved ones goodbye before being hauled off and imprisoned for life or shot
Who wants to be hauled away to be imprisoned or shot? I don’t plan on going easily, so the shooting will be over before the ride.
Amen!
No good can come from this.
i know exactly what it is. ITS DATA MINING. people today are so “celebrity” oriented that they’ll post stuff about themselves that they shouldn’t, pics, places and possessions…people are on some type of govt assistance (whether earned or not)…and of course the old SSN that’s used as a national id card.
the ATF is pulling a page from the Homeland Security game book and just using stuff that’s already available to help them close the loop on people that are “rowdy”.
Data mining is exactly right.
Gun owner registry here we come!
Take a look at what the VA just spent ( over two billion ?) on their much raved about new computer system that would share information on military and medical records, personal information etc. that was to eliminate weeks or months of gathering info from all of these different sources. They couldn’t get the system up, not even close and SCRAPED IT!! After the first ten or twenty million do you think someone would say this isn’t going to work. Now your talking about sharing info from the FBI down to local law enforcement and any and everybody in between( gotta be a hackers dream ) . Who, what, why, where, when. Who are you, what weapons do you own, why do you own them, where can we come get them, you will never know when we will be at your door to get them.