NSA JUST WANTS YOUR TELEPHONE RECORDS; CHOICE POINT WANTS YOUR DNA
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/05/con06189.html
GREG PALAST BUZZFLASH - The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company, formed in 1997, called, Choice Point which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration.
Five years ago, I discovered that Choice Point had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.)
But Choice Point can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act ~ our domestic spying apparatchiks can then buy the info from Choice Point.
Choice Point's board has more Republicans than a Palm Beach country club. It was funded, and its board stocked, by such Republican sugar daddies as billionaires Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone -- even after Langone was charged by the Securities Exchange Commission with abuse of inside information. . .
Choice Point, a sickened executive of the company told us in confidence, "hope[s] to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United States ...linked to all the other information held by CP" from medical to voting records. . .
The company publicly denied they gave DNA to the Feds -- but then told our investigator, pretending to seek work, that Choice Point was "the number one" provider of DNA info to the FBI.
"And that scares the hell out of me," said the executive (who has since left the company), because Choice Point gets it wrong so often. We are not contracting out our Homeland Security to James Bond here. It's more like Austin Powers, Inc.
Besides the 97% error rate in finding Florida "felons," Illinois State Police fired the company after discovering Choice Point had produced test results on rape case evidence . . . that didn't exist.
And Choice Point just got hit with the largest fine in Federal Trade Commission history for letting identity thieves purchase 145,000 credit card records.
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