Journal: FBI Data Mining Students' Financial Aid Records

The U.S. Department of Education has been running program of data mining students' financial aid records for the FBI for five years. The program known as Project Strike Back involved trolling for names of suspected terrorists through the Education Department's database of information derived from student's who fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The discovery of this program by Northwestern University journalism student Laura McGann has added fuel to the debate about the Education Department's proposal to start a new database tracking the academic progress of all students.