Publications

May 12, 2006. William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

The National Security Agency and other organizations of the U.S. government have developed hundreds of software programs and analytic tools to "harvest" intelligence and create dozens of gigantic databases the purpose of which is to discover potential terrorist activity, both inside the United States and overseas.

These cutting edge software tools -- some highly classified because of their functions and capabilities -- continually process hundreds of billions of what are called "structured" data records, including telephone call records and Email headers in "feeds" that have been established to flow into the intelligence agencies.

...

The following list of some 500 software tools, databases, data mining and processing efforts have been contracted for or are under development or in use at the NSA and other intelligence agencies and military commands today. The list itself gives a sense of the scope and scale of the government's program of intelligence collection and tracking. Many of the acronyms and code names lead to standard commercial packages, others are inscrutable classified activities. My hope would be that other journalists and researchers will follow the leads.

• A2IPB
• ABA
• ABC Terrorism Prediction Model
• ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System)
• AC2
• ACCO (Army Central Control Office) counter-intelligence investigations database
• ACOA
• ACTOR (Analyzing Complex Threats for Operations and Readiness)