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The previous poll was motivated by concern that the association with TIA may cause data mining to be perceived by many as "evil" technology and a threat to civil liberties.

For example, several recent news stories criticizing Pentagon's "Total Information Awareness" program described it as a "data-mining" program. See, e.g. Infoworld article "Anti data mining amendment moves forward" (see http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/13/HNantidata_1.html).

The poll asked:

Is "data mining" being perceived as a threat to civil liberties, because of its role in Total Information Awareness (TIA)?

Based on 124 votes, the results were
38% - Yes, by many
36% - Partly, by few privacy advocates
10% - No
15% - Never heard of Total Information Awareness

which confirms my feeling that data mining is being perceived as a threat to civil liberties. The 15% that never heard of TIA probably lives far away from the US.

One comment was that the real threat to privacy is not data mining, but data integration.

See results and comments at www.kdnuggets.com/polls/2003/dm_threat_to_civil_liberties.htm.