High Stakes Data Miners?

The title might bring to mind the BI specialists in Vegas, where arguably the most complex multidimensional analytics in the world takes place, but the table stakes that I had in mind are actually a little higher than you'll find even in a private Texas Hold 'Em game... Life and death for large numbers of people (or perhaps just the political futures of a president, depending on your perspective).

Although the post is a little dated and the NSA isn't in the headlines anymore, one of my favorite blogs had this recently: NSA Hiring Data Miners (Schneier)

Although the million dollar Netflix Prize for data mining is fun as a hobby pursuit, actually data mining telephone calls, web search traffic and other ECHELON-type data (like diplomatic email?) would be a cool job!