This program has Keith Alexander's name written all over it. Alexander has a history of mining as much data as he can, even if it turns out to be worthless. Fr

This program has Keith Alexander's name written all over it. Alexander has a history of mining as much data as he can, even if it turns out to be worthless. From a Foreign Policy article [1]: "When he ran INSCOM and was horning in on the NSA's turf, Alexander was fond of building charts that showed how a suspected terrorist was connected to a much broader network of people via his communications or the contacts in his phone or email account. "He had all these diagrams showing how this guy was connected to that guy and to that guy," says a former NSA official who heard Alexander give briefings on the floor of the Information Dominance Center. "Some of my colleagues and I were skeptical. Later, we had a chance to review the information. It turns out that all [that] those guys were connected to were pizza shops." A retired military officer who worked with Alexander also describes a "massive network chart" that was purportedly about al Qaeda and its connections in Afghanistan. Upon closer examination, the retired officer says, "We found there was no data behind the links. No verifiable sources. We later found out that a quarter of the guys named on the chart had already been killed in Afghanistan." Those network charts have become more massive now that Alexander is running the NSA." [1] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/08/the_cowboy_of_the_nsa_keith_alexander?page=full http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/08/the_cowboy_...