Editing Surveillance (section)

===Data mining and profiling===
[[Data mining]] is the application of statistical techniques and programmatic algorithms to discover previously unnoticed relationships within the data. [[Data profiling]] in this context is the process of assembling information about a particular individual or group in order to generate a profile&nbsp;— that is, a picture of their patterns and behavior. Data profiling can be an extremely powerful tool for psychological and [[social network analysis]]. A skilled analyst can discover facts about a person that they might not even be consciously aware of themselves.<ref name="profiling-euro">{{cite book|author-link1=Mireille Hildebrandt|last=Hildebrandt|first=Mireille|author2=Serge Gutwirth |title=Profiling the European Citizen: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives|publisher=Springer|location=Dordrecht|year=2008|isbn=978-1-4020-6913-0}}</ref>

Economic (such as credit card purchases) and social (such as telephone calls and emails) transactions in modern society create large amounts of stored [[data]] and records. In the past, this data was documented in paper records, leaving a "[[paper trail]]", or was simply not documented at all. Correlation of paper-based records was a laborious process—it required human intelligence operators to manually dig through documents, which was time-consuming and incomplete, at best.

But today many of these records are electronic, resulting in an "[[Digital footprint|electronic trail]]". Every use of a bank machine, payment by credit card, use of a phone card, call from home, checked out library book, rented video, or otherwise complete recorded transaction generates an electronic record. Public records—such as birth, court, tax and other records—are increasingly being digitized and made available online. In addition, due to laws like [[Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act|CALEA]], web traffic and online purchases are also available for profiling. Electronic record-keeping makes data easily collectable, storable, and accessible—so that high-volume, efficient aggregation and analysis is possible at significantly lower costs.

Information relating to many of these individual transactions is often easily available because it is generally not guarded in isolation, since the information, such as the title of a movie a person has rented, might not seem sensitive. However, when many such transactions are [[government databases|aggregated]] they can be used to assemble a detailed profile revealing the actions, habits, beliefs, locations frequented, [[social network analysis|social connections]], and preferences of the individual. This profile is then used, by programs such as [[ADVISE]]<ref name="data-sweep">{{cite news|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.html|title=US Plans Massive Data Sweep|last=Clayton|first=Mark|date=February 9, 2006|work=Christian Science Monitor|access-date=March 13, 2009}}</ref> and [[TALON (database)|TALON]], to determine whether the person is a military, criminal, or political threat.

In addition to its own aggregation and profiling tools, the government is able to access information from third parties—for example, banks, credit companies or employers, etc.—by requesting access informally, by compelling access through the use of subpoenas or other procedures,<ref name="cdt-fbi-subpoenas">{{cite web|url=http://www.cdt.org/security/usapatriot/030924cdt.shtml |title=Administrative Subpoenas for the FBI: A Grab for Unchecked Executive Power |last=Flint |first=Lara |date=September 24, 2003 |work=The Center For Democracy & Technology (official site) |access-date=March 20, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090308183232/http://cdt.org/security/usapatriot/030924cdt.shtml |archive-date=March 8, 2009 }}</ref> or by purchasing data from commercial data aggregators or data brokers. The United States has spent $370 million on its 43 planned [[fusion centers]], which are national network of surveillance centers that are located in over 30 states. The centers will collect and analyze vast amounts of data on U.S. citizens. It will get this data by consolidating personal information from sources such as state driver's licensing agencies, hospital records, criminal records, school records, credit bureaus, banks, etc.—and placing this information in a centralized database that can be accessed from all of the centers, as well as other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.<ref name="epic-fusion-centers">{{cite web|url=http://epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0607/default.html|title="National Network" of Fusion Centers Raises Specter of COINTELPRO|date=June 2007|work= EPIC Spotlight on Surveillance|access-date=March 14, 2009}}</ref>

Under ''[[United States v. Miller]]'' (1976), data held by third parties is generally not subject to [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth Amendment]] warrant requirements.