I don't think bulk data collection was an enormous factor here, because generally, that deals with overseas calls to the United States. But what bulk data collection did was make the process more efficient. So there were no silver bullets there.
The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.
Biases and blind spots exist in big data as much as they do in individual perceptions and experiences. Yet there is a problematic belief that bigger data is always better data and that correlation is as good as causation.
Go out and collect data and, instead of having the answer, just look at the data and see if the data tells you anything. When we're allowed to do this with companies, it's almost magical.
Scientific data are not taken for museum purposes; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action. The step intermediate between the collection of data and the action is prediction.
This is where the world is going: direct access from anywhere to any type of data, whether it's a small piece of data or a small answer but a long algorithm to create that answer. The user doesn't care about this.
Knowledge about limitations of your data collection process affects what inferences you can draw from the data.
The USA Freedom Act does not propose that we abandon any and all efforts to analyze telephone data, what we're talking about here is a program that currently contemplates the collection of all data just as a routine matter and the aggregation of all that data in one database. That causes concerns for a lot of people... There's a lot of potential for abuse.
As a believer in the free market, the sooner you have people with a job - the better chance they have a job, the sooner they are employed - the sooner they become consumers. And the sooner they become consumers, the sooner they become deciders about their own health care decisions.
More data is not always the answer.
I'm kind of fascinated by this idea that we can surround ourselves with information: we can just pile up data after data after data and arm ourselves with facts and yet still not be able to answer the questions that we have.
Philosophers of science have repeatedly demonstrated that more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection of data.
Is there water still on Mars? I don't have a view on that because we don't have good data to answer that question. One of the biggest mistakes you can make if you're a scientist is to think you know the answer, or wish for a certain answer, before you actually have it.
We realised that the safer creative people and craftsman feel, the better the collection they produce. If they do a better collection, my revenues grow. It is not easy to attach figures, but it is what happens.
If you have a little inteligence, sooner or later the question is bound to arise: What is the point of it all? Why? It is impossible to avoid the question for long. And if you are very intelligent, it is always there, persistently there, hammering on your heart for the answer: Give me the answer! - Why?
I kept a notebook, a surreptitious journal in which I jotted down phrases, technical data, miscellaneous information, names, dates, places, telephone numbers, thoughts, and a collection of other data I thought was necessary or might prove helpful.