Follow Datanami:
September 13, 2013

Feds Attempt Big Data Rehabilitation After Snowden Revelations

While the big data technology trend shows a lot of promise and potential for streamlining everything from economics to social issues, the oft hyped but always relevant phenomenon has taken a beating in the public perception lately thanks to revelations of purported NSA abuses by Edward Snowden. To help make matters right in the public eye, the Department of Homeland Security (DHs) has launched a sort-of “big data rehabilitation tour,” to explain the associated technologies and their usefulness.

In a recent talk to about 60 students, members of the public, and a live stream audience, Alan Bersin, assistant secretary of international affairs and chief diplomatic officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave a talk titled, “Managing Global Borders: In Defense of Big Data.” Held in Michigan’s Annenberg Auditorium, a recent article reported that the talk centered around “the need for big data as a solution to today’s issues of homeland security,” while also editorializing on the damage that the NSA has done to the concept of big data in the public eye.

“So here’s the problem: I understand that the Snowden disclosures have created a real issue in terms of, not just in terms of big data, though I hope I’ve at least started the debate in your minds if you’ve had question about how big data operates in the security realm … but this idea of spying on one another, espionage against countries, is actually more the rule than the exception,” Bersin reportedly said, adding that the DHS must embrace big data in order to protect the United States in the age of information. 

“Big data is not only necessary, but it’s desirable in order to resolve these contradictions in managing global border flows,” Bersin said. “We actually are at a point where we cannot look at the old methods of resolving problems in quite the same way.”

Bersin used the opportunity to explain the necessity for big data technologies illustrating that threats to security are needles in the haystack, and that big data technologies work to make the haystack smaller through the separation of low-risk traffic from the high risk. In his discussion, he illustrated examples of why big data should be seen as an integral part of US security.

In what was described as a defining moment, he noted a case where UPS and FedEx packages addressed to Chicago Synagogues were discovered that originated in Yemen. The packages ended up being printers with bombs tucked deep inside their guts that wouldn’t have triggered any conventional security alarms. While a tip from Saudi intelligence officials set off a search, the open question is whether data analytics would have flagged the package sooner.

Bersin argued that big data is a crucial ingredient for US security, saying that borders are no longer juridical lines separating nations, but rather comprise of a flow of goods, people and ideas. “Big data is not only necessary, but it’s desirable in order to resolve these contradictions in managing global border flows,” he said.

In attempting to address privacy concerns, Bersin commented that the data being reviewed is minimal.

“The way in which we mine data now is based on algorithms and search devices that are very targeted,” Bersin said. “So, in fact, we can say that very few of the actual data points are touched by the scanning of big data, and the only matters that are examined are those in which there is an alert or a hit.”

Related items:

 

NSA’s ‘Secret War on Encryption’ Exposed 

NSA to Build Data Analytics Lab at North Carolina State 

Banks Consider the Rewards and Risks of Big Data 

 

Datanami