by TChris

Concerned about your privacy? You should be. Despite the Bush administration's asserted desire (back in 2002) to protect privacy by appointing a "privacy czar" to oversee each federal agency's "privacy advocate," the administration is more concerned about its own privacy than yours.

First there was the Patriot Act. Government agents can sneak into your home, snoop, and never tell you they were there. (TalkLeft recently reported on the use of the Patriot Act to seek evidence against Brandon Mayfield.) Then there were aborted attempts to implement the Total Information Awareness Project (TalkLeft coverage here) and DARPA's plan to spy on entire cities using blimps (TalkLeft coverage here). And then there's Matrix, the floundering attempt to create a crime-fighting database (TalkLeft coverage here).

Now the GAO tells us that the federal government has more than 120 programs to collect and analyze personal data so they can predict the behavior of individuals. According to Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who asked for the GAO study:

"I am disturbed by the high number of data mining activities in the federal government involving personal information. The federal government collects and uses Americans' personal information and shares it with other agencies to an astonishing degree, raising serious privacy concerns."

Cynthia Webb has a good overview of privacy issues in the federal government. Meanwhile, where's the privacy czar that the administration promised back in 2002? Democrats are still trying to find one.