Post by RS Davis on Mar 2, 2004 3:01:46 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]James W. Harris Wrote:[/glow]
Privacy-minded citizens cheered last fall when Congress, in response to huge public protest, eliminated the creepy "Terrorist Information
Awareness" (TIA) scheme for high-tech spying on citizens.
However, they celebrated too soon. For all practical purposes, the police-state TIA program (originally known as "Total Information Awareness") is alive, well, and growing.
"Despite an outcry over privacy implications, the government is pressing ahead with research to create powerful tools to mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists," reported Associated Press in late February.
Some TIA projects were simply transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, where work on them continues. Furthermore, Congress quietly left alone what Associated Press describes as "a separate but similar
$64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity, or ARDA, that has used some of the same researchers as [TIA]."
Some of TIA's most controversial programs are among those still being researched and developed, AP further states.
"The whole congressional action [defunding TIA] looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough
of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated -- while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."
As reported in past issues of The Liberator Online, the stated goal of TIA was to predict terrorist attacks by giving the federal government vast new powers and technology to assemble and comb massive databases of deeply private and personal data, including such things as passport applications, visas, work permits, Internet use, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, credit transactions, and education, medical and housing records.
The ACLU said TIA "may be the closest thing to a true "Big Brother" program that has ever been seriously contemplated in the United States."
The organization's almost absurdly sinister logo -- a giant eye atop a pyramid surveying the entire earth with a sci-fi blast of light, accompanied by the Latin phrase "knowledge is power" -- perfectly
symbolized the 1984-ish nature of the scheme.
In addition to privacy concerns, TIA raised fears that many innocent Americans would face accusations due to research errors. Even TIA's researchers admitted that TIA's massive and invasive research could
put huge numbers of utterly innocent American under suspicion and surveillance.
Congress has said that the fruits of current TIA-related research can only be used overseas or against non-U.S. citizens in this country -- for now, anyway. However, given the expansive nature of government programs, and the secrecy surrounding this kind of research, no one can really be sure how long -- if at all -- such a restriction will be obeyed.
Privacy advocates also fear that, once these kinds of high-powered spy tools are developed, they will quickly and eagerly be used by other government agencies for non-terrorist-related matters, further eroding
privacy and liberty.
(Source: Associated Press / The Daily Herald:
www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14894
Privacy-minded citizens cheered last fall when Congress, in response to huge public protest, eliminated the creepy "Terrorist Information
Awareness" (TIA) scheme for high-tech spying on citizens.
However, they celebrated too soon. For all practical purposes, the police-state TIA program (originally known as "Total Information Awareness") is alive, well, and growing.
"Despite an outcry over privacy implications, the government is pressing ahead with research to create powerful tools to mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists," reported Associated Press in late February.
Some TIA projects were simply transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, where work on them continues. Furthermore, Congress quietly left alone what Associated Press describes as "a separate but similar
$64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity, or ARDA, that has used some of the same researchers as [TIA]."
Some of TIA's most controversial programs are among those still being researched and developed, AP further states.
"The whole congressional action [defunding TIA] looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough
of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated -- while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."
As reported in past issues of The Liberator Online, the stated goal of TIA was to predict terrorist attacks by giving the federal government vast new powers and technology to assemble and comb massive databases of deeply private and personal data, including such things as passport applications, visas, work permits, Internet use, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, credit transactions, and education, medical and housing records.
The ACLU said TIA "may be the closest thing to a true "Big Brother" program that has ever been seriously contemplated in the United States."
The organization's almost absurdly sinister logo -- a giant eye atop a pyramid surveying the entire earth with a sci-fi blast of light, accompanied by the Latin phrase "knowledge is power" -- perfectly
symbolized the 1984-ish nature of the scheme.
In addition to privacy concerns, TIA raised fears that many innocent Americans would face accusations due to research errors. Even TIA's researchers admitted that TIA's massive and invasive research could
put huge numbers of utterly innocent American under suspicion and surveillance.
Congress has said that the fruits of current TIA-related research can only be used overseas or against non-U.S. citizens in this country -- for now, anyway. However, given the expansive nature of government programs, and the secrecy surrounding this kind of research, no one can really be sure how long -- if at all -- such a restriction will be obeyed.
Privacy advocates also fear that, once these kinds of high-powered spy tools are developed, they will quickly and eagerly be used by other government agencies for non-terrorist-related matters, further eroding
privacy and liberty.
(Source: Associated Press / The Daily Herald:
www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14894
