U.S. anti-terror investigators want better access to data in social networks

U.S. anti-terror investigators want better access to data in social
networks

New legal regulations for the better access of anti-terrorism experts on
data from Google, Facebook and similar services, calls the head of the
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller. At a hearing
in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security said Mueller, the
investigators could not afford blind spots. The obligations of Internet
services to cooperate with the authorities should be clearly regulated
by law.

What problems, investigators have concrete, Mueller led the Senate
committee is not sufficient. Google itself recognized in its "visibility
index" for the U.S., announced that it has answered 94 percent of more
than 4,600 inquiries from July to December 2010 fully or partially.

A key project for the future of the FBI, according to the FBI director
is a better technical access to the numerous databases operated by
different authorities. "We need these databases run from different
reasons, but separate, but it must be possible to make a simple search
across all these databases, internally and externally." Among the
reasons for the waiver of a mega-database, according to Mueller are
different requirements for different data sets. The head of the
Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano spoke at the hearing
about from different storage periods for the retention of data from U.S.
citizens.

The cross-country search will allow the terrorist to his own statements
to investigators and to bring minor offenses with possible terrorist
acts in preparation for connection. Support for such a simplified,
centralized "mining" in the growing mountains of data received during
the hearing, Mueller especially from newly minted chief of the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Matt Olsen.

Napolitano defended the principle considerably increased budgets for
national security and the anti-terror fight - the DHS budget proposal
for 2012 amounts to 56 billion U.S. dollars, of the FBI to 8 billion.
Also, a certain redundancy through the juxtaposition of the authorities
was in the security sense. To its chairman, the Democrat Joe Lieberman,
and his deputy, Susan Collins (Republican) ran the three agencies, heads
of an open door. You expressly warned against underestimating the
terrorist threat 10 years after the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. Tend commented Liebermann, obviously shaken by the
economic crisis of U.S. citizens. In a survey they called terror as the
last of six major issues, long after poor health care, corruption and
unemployment.