The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thousands of innocent people

Re:The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thous... by pavelrub on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @06:01AM (#11109084)

> The reasonable thing to do with that information, would be to surveil them further, search their house, or arrest them. Not assassinate them without a trial.

Which seems to be exactly the case. Ahmad Zaidan, for example, wasn't assassinated. In fact even if the algorithm was 100% correct - it makes no sense to assassinate people solely based on whether they are terrorists or not. A lot more can be gained from surveilling some of them, etc'.

So there is really nothing at all to suggest that those algorithms alone are used to create kill lists.

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Re:The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thous... by qeabc on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @06:40AM (#11109209)

> So there is really nothing at all to suggest that those algorithms alone are used to create kill lists.

The first line of the article actually suggests this: 'In 2014, the former director of both the CIA and NSA proclaimed that "we kill people based on metadata."'

Also, even if something does not make sense does not mean that it does not seem to make sense to a particular person or organization.

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Re:The NSA’s machine learning algorithm may be killing thous... by mike_hearn on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @08:35AM (#11109664)

Yeah but nothing going on in the national security state makes much sense. The CIA drone program needs targets. It devours them. When they ran out of real intelligence they started killing people they didn't even know the name of because they "looked like terrorists", check out signature strikes.

Those drones are going to be tasked no matter what. If the quality of the input intelligence is crap, well, good thing it's all top secret right!

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