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Also this issue: Ream's LOVE Dream Quitters Sometimes Win |
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November 14-20, 2002
loose canon
It would be the biggest, baddest database of them all. A fact-digger capable of massive electronic strip-mining. And now we not only know its name, but who wants to run it.
The name of this proposed database crawler is the Total Information Awareness system, or TIA, for short. TIA is a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Pentagon program best known for its early contribution to what became the Internet.
The man in charge of TIA is Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter. He is best known for his contribution to what became the Iran-Contra affair.
Poindexter was among those convicted during the administration of Ronald Reagan for arming terrorists against the specific prohibition of Congress. His 1990 conviction was later overturned under a grant of immunity.
With Poindexter's return earlier this year to the Pentagon, the executive branch is again apparently trying to use the military to do an end run around civilian control. Only now, should they succeed with TIA, Poindexter's people will have access to everything virtual about every American citizen.
J. Edgar Hoover would have loved it -- except that TIA will be under the control of the military.
The goal of the TIA, according to a recent New York Times article, is to provide "intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transaction and travel documents, without a search warrant."
As inclusive and excessive at that may seem, according to an official schematic of the military-run system (http://www.darpa.mil/iao/tiasystems.htm), TIA will have even greater powers to penetrate our private lives.
TIA will be designed to scan records of finance, education, travel, medical, veterinary, country entry, transportation and housing.
TIA was created last year with an initial budget of $96 million; the 2003 budget, according to the trade journal Federal Computer Week, is about $150 million. However, this information -- in fact, any hard information about TIA -- is difficult to verify.
When asked about the program by the Times, Poindexter declined to be interviewed; an unnamed spokeswoman from the Pentagon confirmed only that they were trying to coordinate with law enforcement agencies; an FBI official, also speaking anonymously, would only say that there have been discussions with the military; and a Homeland Security spokesman claimed not to know anything at all about TIA.
What we do know is this: The Homeland Security Act, now before Congress, would loosen the Privacy Act of 1974, which limits what the government can do with an individual's private information.
If that bill passes, then TIA can really take off.
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