Data mining is a useful, and well used, tool in many industries. More useful, however, is a targeted and concise analysis of the data collected.
For instance, I heard an account of U.S. Army Intelligence once trying to use data mining to determine connections and commonalities between terrorist attacks, particularly the individuals involved. One of the people the data-mining program identified was Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time. This example illustrates that while data mining can unearth a wealth of information, it takes discriminating analysis to make sure we are not just making connections, but the right connections.