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“Our committee believes that the terrorist threat against the United States continues, that it is serious and we support vigorous action by the federal government to counter it,” said the National Academy of Engineering President Charles Vest. Vest is also the co-chair of the National Research Council committee which today released a new study: Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: a framework for program assessments. The report focuses on preventing counter terrorism and still keeping Americans privacy intact.

The Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation requested and sponsored the report in order to highlight the importance of evaluating data mining, an analyzing method used to find specific relevant information in a large amount of data, as well as behavioral surveillance technology. According to Vest, the counter terrorism community must have access to the best tools and technologies in gathering information, but still the Americans privacy must be protected.

“In order to get the best possible tools there must be a realistic assessment,” said William Perry former U.S. Secretary of Defense, also co-chair of the committee. According to Perry, most of the conclusions stated in the report was based on common sense. “The terror threat to the United States is real ... We do not underestimate that at all,” said Perry.