Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/us/04monitor.html
WA****NGTON, Oct. 3 — A consortium of major universities,
using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software
that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the
United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications
overseas.
Such a “sentiment analysis” is intended to identify potential
threats to the nation, security officials said.
Researchers at institutions including Cornell,
the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah
intend to test the system on hundreds of articles published
in 2001 and 2002 on topics like President Bush’s use of
the term “axis of evil,” the handling of detainees at
Guantánamo Bay, the debate over global warming and the
coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
“We want to understand the rhetoric that is being published
and how intense it is, such as the difference between dislike
and excoriate,” he said.
Even the basic research has raised concern among journalism
advocates and privacy groups, as well as representatives of
the foreign news media.
“It is just creepy and Orwellian,” said Lucy Dalglish,
a lawyer and former editor who is executive director of
the Re****ters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Andrei Sitov, Wa****ngton bureau chief of the Itar-Tass
news agency of Russia, said he hoped that the objective
did not go beyond simply identifying threats to efforts
to stifle criticism about an American president or administration.
“This is what makes your country great, the open society
where people can criticize their own government,” Mr. Sitov said.
The researchers, using an grant provided by a research group
once affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency, have
complied a database of hundreds of articles that it is
being used to train a computer to recognize, rank and
interpret statements.
The articles in the database include work from many American newspapers
and news wire services, including The Miami Herald and The New York Times,
as well as foreign sources like Agence France-Presse and The Dawn,
a newspaper in Pakistan.
Ultimately, the government could in a semiautomated way track
a statement by specific individuals abroad or track re****ts by
particular foreign news outlets or journalists, rating comments
about American policies or officials.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Wa****ngton, said the effort recalled the aborted 2002
push by a Defense Department agency to develop a tracking system
called Total Information Awareness that was intended to detect
terrorists by analyzing troves of information.
“That is really chilling,” Mr. Rotenberg said.
“And it seems far afield from the mission of homeland security.”
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Secret Service Arrests Man for Talking to Dick Cheney:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/wa****ngton/04cheney.html
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