U.S. 'data mining' for terror information

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A huge U.S. government "data mining" project is being developed as part of the battle to stop terror attacks before they happen.

The system known as Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic enhancement -- Advice -- is being established by the Department of Homeland Security, the Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday.

Programmers hope to fashion a system that is able to cull through computer data and determine a pattern that could be sent to human analysts, the newspaper said.

Part of the overall program is operational and has had a hand in stopping terror attacks, National Visualization Analytics Center Director Jim Thomas told the Monitor. He couldn't, however, give details for security reasons.

The sheer breadth of the program concerns privacy activists who say not enough is known of how the technology works and how much information the government intends to collect.