Connecting the Dots, Missing the Story

[Commentary] Could Big Data have prevented 9/11? Perhaps—Dick Cheney, for one, seems to think so. But let's consider another, far more provocative question: What if 9/11 happened today, in the era of Big Data, making it all but inevitable that all the 19 hijackers had extensive digital histories?

It used to be that one's propensity for terrorism was measured in books or sermons. Today, it's measured in clicks. It's not that books or sermons no longer matter—they still do—it's just today they are consumed digitally, in a way that leaves a trail. And that trail allows us to establish patterns. Are the books you bought on Amazon today more radical than the books you bought last month? If so, you might be a person of interest. The good news—at least to Big Data proponents—is that we don't need to understand what any of these clicks or videos mean. We just need to establish some relationship between the unknown terrorists of tomorrow and the established terrorists of today.