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Student Financial Aid Records Target of FBI and Education Dept. Data Mining Project

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Investigative work by students at the Medill School of Journalism has uncovered a joint FBI and Department of Education data mining program that reviewed the records of hundreds of students. The goal was purportedly to discern whether financial aid funding was used to advance terrorist efforts against the United States. Information about the student’s work is available from several sources:

  • Medill press release: Medill Students Break National News with News 21 Project “Liberty vs. Security”: “…News21 is a part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education, which provided grants to five universities to allow journalism students to pursue investigative reporting projects in depth…By combing through the federal register, reviewing documents from the Office of Management and Budget and by forming close relationships within government agencies, the News21 group was able to assemble a comprehensive database detailing the ways federal agencies track individuals’ personal data. In all, the information totaled about 20,000 words.”
  • Carneige-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education –Studying Students – Education Department and FBI scoured millions of student records, by Laura McGann, September 1, 2006: “For the past five years an office in the Education Department has scanned through its databases of millions of students’ federal financial aid and college enrollment records in search of terrorist names supplied by the FBI. The effort, dubbed “Project Strike Back,” was created by the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to expand the office’s mission to include counterterrorism.”
  • The Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Department Mined Hundreds of Students’ Records as Part of FBI Antiterrorist Operation: “Under the program, the FBI provided names to the Education Department to cross-check in the department’s database of applicants for student financial aid. The repository keeps information on some 14 million students per year who apply for federal financial aid by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, the standard application form that the federal government, state governments, and most colleges use to determine students’ eligibility for financial aid. Included in the database are students’ names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s-license numbers.” [Thanks to Barbara Semonche].

  • Related: Gov’t Proceeds With Plans to Mine Personal Data on Students and Monitoring Foreign Students
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