Data Sharing, Government Style

rowama writes "The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department have been collaborating to develop an XML-based model for data sharing. After less than a year since the initial release, in October 2005, the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) 1.0 Beta is out. It's big, really big. There are no less than 9 namespaces and plans for future expansion. Contact your local government contractor, with resume in hand, and you may be one of the lucky developers to implement NIEM-capable software."

Re:Bonus advantage

[Lally Singh]

There are some large ethical questions programmers have to ask themselves when taking on jobs these days. After my last DoD gig, I've really started filtering what opportunities I'll consider. Mass surveillance, for example, is something most of my contacts know I won't touch.

As for the 9 namespaces, it's actually pretty reasonable. From TFA:
xmlns:u="http://niem.gov/niem/universal/1.0"
xmlns:s="http://niem.gov/niem/structures/1.0"
xmlns:c="http://niem.gov/niem/common/1.0"
xmlns:j="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/justice/1.0"
xmlns:emer="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/emergency -management/1.0"
xmlns:im="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/immigration /1.0"
xmlns:ip="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/infrastruct ureProtection/1.0"
xmlns:int="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/intelligen ce/1.0"
xmlns:it="http://niem.gov/niem/domains/internation alTrade/1.0"

Re:thank Government for databases

[DoubleRing]

Meanwhile grandma is still taking off her shoes and getting wanded at the airport.

As objectionable as this is, I think the bigger problem is the racial scanning that goes on at these airports. There are large groups of Middle Eastern people living in the US. Have they attempted any massive terrorist operation? To grandma, it's just an inconvenience. To these people, this is prejudice. Why do people go crazy over some dumb psp ad (which didn't even make it to the US) and skip over these issues?

Re:thank Government for databases

[jrumney]

which didn't even make it to the US

Yeah, well neither do the people [wsj.com] who've been racially profiled onto the no-fly-list once they've left. (registration free link [informatio...house.info])

Re:thank Government for databases

[Anonymous Coward]

As objectionable as this is, I think the bigger problem is the racial scanning that goes on at these airports.

No, the bigger problem is making government agents into robots. They only follow procedures and aren't allowed to think for themselves (or heaven forbid, take initiative), for fear that someone could say that they were performing racial profiling. We are more afraid of the political repercussions of a few racial discrimination cases than the repercussions of planes being bombed or flown into major landmarks.