Total Information Awareness, Disguised And Alive 439
unassimilatible writes "According to the AP, aspects of the controversial Total Information Awareness DARPA program, officially shut down by the U.S. Congress in September 2003 after a public outcry, seem to have survived. The article reports, 'Some projects from retired Adm. John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness effort were transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials told The Associated Press. In addition, Congress left undisturbed 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 Poindexter's program.'"
btw imho lol (Score:5, Informative)
See what acronyms can do to you. MWEAC [google.com], OSIS [army.mil], MISSI [google.com], hell some of their own [kuro5hin.org] don't even know what exists or even what they do. Again, I thank John Asscroft and his Patriot Act [eff.org], all under the gimmick of the pork barrel Department of Homeland Insignificance. Now, obviously this sound trollish but it is not, most people here click by things without looking into things. Sort of like the way stories are read here, a quick glimpse, and that's that.
For those interested in what is going on in government behind the scenes, don't always think people who post the kinds of things I post are all conspiratorial stories aimed at bringing down government through chaos. Hell look at sites like FAS [fas.org], Cryptome [cryptome.org], Arms Control [armscontrol.org], and the multitude of others. Many people point things out but too many are concerned with menial things such as Janet's boobs, Sex and the Shitty, etc., to notice the rug being pulled from under them. Hell most Americans think CNN and Fox are the holy grail of news. Get out there and read, know what's happening in your country. Check out BBC, Observer, Greg Palast, AntiWar [antiwar.com], Chomsky. These people aren't being controlled via advertisers, not political pressure. I write sometimes too kooky assed documents [politrix.org], that some might say aren't worth a pot to piss in [politrix.org]. Maybe so, but there is a reason for me rambling on like a madman sometimes. I care about my privacy and liberty. I don't want my friends or family growing up in something out of "Escape from Alcatraz"
Re:Nothing stopping it now. (Score:5, Informative)
NSA's not in the business of making people disappear. The program is public. Do you think they make every concerned citizen disappear? Please. Don't take movies as documentaries.
In fact, NSA tends to be one of the more non-threatening agencies when it comes to dealing with protestors. Remember the infamous tea party, when they just met the protestors at the fence, gave them some tea, and asked them about any specific issues they had? They're not quite that loose anymore, but I'd really be more concerned with Homeland Security than NSA.
-Erwos
More interesting links... (Score:2, Informative)
Tele
Points of Contact
ARDA Telephone Numbers (301) 688-7092 (comm)
992-3000 (NSTS)
Thrust Managers
Information Exploitation (IE) - (443) 479-8006 / 992-7228
Quantum Information Science (QIS) - (443) 479-8008 / 992-7230
Glodal[SIC-"Global"? ed.] Infosystems Access (GIA) - (443) 479-8009 / 992-7231
Novel Intelligence from Massive Data (NIMD) - (443) 479-8010 / 992-7232
Information Assurance (IA) - (443) 479-8012 / 992-7234
Program Managers
Resource Enhancement Program (REP) - (443) 479-8005 / 992-7228
Exploratory Investigations (EI) - (443) 479-8011 / 992-7233
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) - (443) 479-8011 / 992-7233
and from the "Contact Us" page:
If you are interested in learning more about ARDA or have questions, please contact ARDA via:
arda@nsa.gov
301-688-7092
800-276-3747
(fax) 301-688-7410
ARDA
STE 6644
9800 Savage Road
Fort George G. Meade, MD
20755-6530
Re:Why ... (Score:5, Informative)
send your thanks to these people (Score:4, Informative)
Mark Maybury, MITRE (Chair), maybury@mitre.org
Karen Sparck Jones, University of Cambridge, sparckjones@cl.cam.ac.uk
Ellen Voorhees, NIST, ellen.voorhees@nist.gov
Sanda Harabagiu, University of Texas at Austin, sanda@cs.utexas.edu
Liz Liddy, University of Syracuse, liddy@syr.edu
John Prange, ARDA, jprange@nsa.gov
ARDA workshops [google.com]. And for your non Americans, if you think it's limited to us... Have I got news for you [unctad.org]! They'll be snooping around the mountains when you come... They'll be snooping around the mountains... they'll be snooping around the mountains...
US CON says otherwise (Score:5, Informative)
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6th:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Re:Big government (Score:4, Informative)
Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
[wikipedia.org]
The usual AI suspects (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting who the research money was going to. Lenat's Cycorp is well-known in the AI community as a black hole into which vast sums of money are poured with no useful results.
On the other hand, Craig Knoblock, whose name was horribly misspelled in the article, is a first class AI researcher. His current work looks like it would be useful outside the context of TIA.
All in all, it looks like the usual story: well-known names in the AI community being supported by money from wherever in the convoluted entrails of the US Federal Govt money comes from. If TIA is defunded, they need new grants to keep working. Don't know that it all means much.
Re:I think data mining is scary (Score:4, Informative)
Consider that there are approximately 300 million people in the united states. At 10 phone calls a day for 365 days you get 1 trillion phone calls per year. Suppose I have 100 known terrorists telephone activity for 6 months, and I want to find similar patterns in the remainder of my data to identify other terrorist rings. That means I have 100*10*365/2 = 182,500 training examples. I.e., 200k / 1,000,000,000k ~= two millionths of a percent of my data for training a predictive model is labeled as positive for terrorist activity. Even with an amazingly accurate algorithm, this will lead to hundreds of thousands of false positives and a few true positives, for no net gain of actionable information. Certainly you can narrow these results by orders of magnitude through very intensive effort, but the margin will not be overcome.
To track down known terrorists can't the data be requested on an as-needed basis through the courts?
No shocker there (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, the funding bill that supposedly "killed" TIA only banned funding for the program called "Terrorism Information Awareness." It's a gaping legal loophole that seems to have been written in a piss-poor attempt at reassuring Joe and Jane CNN Viewer that the good government really had no intention to spy on them for subversive activities, no-siree.
I'm not surprised the obvious result is taking place. I am surprised that someone in a newsroom somewhere thought to follow up on the fate of TIA-related research.
Remember: It's not paranoia if they're really watching you.
Re:From the ARDA Page (Score:5, Informative)
DARPA is only concerned with research. Not production or use.
On the couple of DARPA programs I worked on it goes like this.
1.) DARPA gets a crazy idea (like "I wonder if we can make an anti-gravity device".)
2.) DARPA puts together about 6 to 10 teams of researchers (from industry and academia) and gives them some money to study the problem.
3.) 6 months or so later the teams present their ideas to DARPA. DARPA then decides if it wants to stop the research or continue.
4.) If DARPA continues. It will pick the best 2 or 3 approaches and give those teams more money for more details on their approach.
5.) 6 months or so later the teams present their approaches to DARPA. If DARPA really likes an idea, it might have one of the teams build a small prototype.
If the prototype works out DARPA will ask congress to take the research to production (not under DARPA but under DOD).
Very, very rarely does a DARPA project make it to production.
Re:From the ARDA Page (Score:4, Informative)
High Risk as in it's not likely they'll be able to make it work, but it'll be Really Cool (in their opinion) if they can.
Re:Why ... (Score:3, Informative)
-----------
Please read my post above.
Re:US CON says otherwise (Score:3, Informative)
A quote:
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes: "The war power of the national government is the power to wage war successfully and it is not for any court to sit in review of the wisdom of their actions [the executive or Congress], or to substitute its actions for theirs."
Let's seen what happens this time around now that an R did it to one person.
Re:unreasonable search (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Big government (Score:4, Informative)
Many Americans choose to be ignorant this historical record because of the Republicans talk of lowering taxes, in spite of the obvious connection between increased government spending and a need for increased revenues.
Many Americans are aware of the historical record, are aware of the continuing illegal activities of our intelligence agencies (both abroad and at home), yet they choose to act as if blind to these things, will argue in favor of these actions, and will contrive to make life difficult of anyone who dare speak of them (if you do not produce documentation you are "crazy", if you do produce documentation then you are "dangerous").
TIA and ARDA are little more than our intelligence agencies and the current Republican administration conspiring to behave a bit more like the dictators they have traditionally backed. The intelligence agencies and the industries that are supported by them would like to see a return to the more lucrative days of the Cold War. They feel they are under threat as more and more people are scrutinizing their history using collections of documents released by the Freedom of Information Act, like those at the National Security Archive [nsarchive.org], EPIC.org [epic.org], the Federation of American Scientists [fas.org], the EFF [eff.org], and probably more that I am unaware of.
Read this stuff, it is an amazing way to gain insight into the hidden workings of our government. Read about "the Church Commission [google.com] to learn how the CIA breaks the law, hires the mob, and manipulates the media while harassing and murdering US citizens that they beleive hold "un-American beleifs". Read about the Iran-Contra [gwu.edu] affair to learn how little respect for the law our current Administration's Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Poindexter (among others) really have, and read about the cocaine importing [gwu.edu] that they participated in [webcom.com] to fund their pet terrorists.
The current mood seems to support giving our Federal Law Enforcement and Intelligence agencies increased freedoms to invade our privacy while reducing oversight of their actions in hopes that this will increase national security and make our lives a little safer. The problem is that when you look at the record of their history, it appears that the opposite is much more likely to result, and that allowing the FBI and CIA increased freedom and power, might just end the
Re:US CON says otherwise (Score:3, Informative)
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
So, a treaty does not override the Constitution, but it does carry the force of Federal law.
Re:Similar (Score:3, Informative)
So, as a nice loophole to get the poor bastard strung up ex post facto, we're happy to leave him in Cuba to be prosecuted by the Americans.
Let me reiterate that. WHAT HE DID AT THE TIME WAS NOT ILLEGAL.
Re:From the ARDA Page (Score:1, Informative)
DARPA programs that provide actionable information to an end-user can be easily adopted.
Since TIA deals with helping generate possible alerts and support investigations, I would guess it could easily be released for use.
-
Re:Why ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:just to be fair... (Score:2, Informative)
What the hell is that supposed to mean? May I remind you that the original purpose of the federal government was primarily to resolve disputes among the states? There was no individual income tax, and the federal budget primarily consisted only of the money required to pay Congressmen's salaries. These days the federal government consumes about 40% of the GNP and is tantamount to an oligarchy. Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution [dotson.net] grants Congress only 19 specific powers, and none of them (except for counterfeiting) permits the federal government to pass laws regulating the conduct of individual citizens. Such laws were only within the purview of the individual states.
Inasmuch as one of the primary purposes of the government is the defense of the country, the present 18% budget expenditure on defense is probably justified, but other than that all the myriad entitlement programs, federal government agencies, etc., could and should be eliminated, resulting in a federal government that is minuscule compared to it's present ponderous and burdensome size.
Re:I like this (Score:4, Informative)
The US government was informed immediately by the Indian government but didn't care to listen to the details of how he also skipped the Dehli-Paris leg already, was a regular, legitimate traveler, and most important, had a name that simply is as common in that part of the world as "John Smith" is in the US, and which to an ignorant desk-jockey in Washington thought sounded like a name used by a terrorist.
In others words: the whole Christmas "terrorist alert" was a crock caused by moronic goverment incompetence, at best.
Re:Similar (Score:2, Informative)
Banality huh? You really must be an staunch adherant to the fight fire with fire philosophy.
Regarding Guantanamo, I have no problem with the US holding combatant terrorists for as long as they deem necessary. These terrorists were not fighting under the accord of any acknowledged UN/Geneva conventions of war, thus they are not privy to the protections of said conventions.
Or any conventions of human rights either, apparently.
It is America's behaviour that is unlawful in this situation. No other country can be bothered risking their relationship (ie. financial and diplomatic) with the US over a bunch of Afghan nobodies and a handful of foreign nationals. The US can do as it pleases, no one will oppose it.
That Australia is none too desirous of having the combatant terrorists repatriated to Australia where they cannot be prosecuted under laws passed post Afghanistan-conflict, is not surprising.
Irrelevant. They don't care, it's all just to please the US. Why would Australia care about people who aren't enemies of Australia?
They'll let the US mete out whatever punishment they are due and then take them back at the appropiate time.
Not if they get the death penalty.
Australia has not sold out its citizens. They have sold out their Australian citizenship by engaging in illegal conflict.
Under Australian law (at the time), those Australian citizens held at Guantanamo have done nothing to warrant being held.
If you send your name and address to the US Military, I'm sure they'll be sure to send them directly to your residence when they are released. Perhaps you can pick up some Pashtun and learn how to make bombs.
I wouldn't have any problem with that, after all the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I look forward to your reply.
US Government are not stupid (Score:3, Informative)
They want to keep an eye on you all.
This is NOT about terrorism.
I have posted on this topic many times.
Extract:
Ask Security Services in the US, UK, Indonesia (Bali) or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
The authorities try make everything they say sound perfectly reasonable.
e.g. Officials from US Defence Department agency have said that they want, "the same level of accountability in cyberspace that we now have in the physical world".
Do government currently keep records of everything that you touch in the physical world to analyse?
No they do not - So then, is that the same level of accountability?
More at previous post [slashdot.org].
Re:Why ... (Score:1, Informative)
The ACLU disagrees with you. [aclu.org] When it comes to either believing some pseudoanonymous poster on the internet who only says those he disagrees with are wrong and then goes to argue a straw man[1], or a civil watchdog group run by professionals whose job is to monitor and understand law developments, I'll believe the later over the former.
[1] Where did the author you're replying to say the Partiot Act gave a "blank check to do whatever they want?"
Re:Common practice (Score:2, Informative)
Empire building is the worst. Managers in government departments do not get cash bonuses or stock options like their counterparts in private enterprise. If a bureaucrat wants to increase his compensation he has two options: get promoted outside the department, or build up his department by adding staff until he has so many people working under him that he can go to his manager and say "Look how much more responsibility I have! Much more so than Joe over in the Department of Thumb Twiddling...and he makes more than I do!". So he is highly motivated to make his budget as big as he can. And what does he get if he (the fool!) reduces his budget? A "productivity award" plaque, which he can hang on the wall, much to the amusement of his buddy Joe.
Most budgets are operational, that is, you figure what you need to run your program, estimate what changed from last year, and request what you need for the year ahead. But now and then a major cross-departmental program is announced with funding for some initiative. It's a huge amount of money, and if you are a good manager, you will figure out how to get a slice of it. This is the "gravy train effect". Anything you do that has even the remotest connection to the program is reclassified, renamed, and generally reconfigured to siphon off money from it. That's why those major programs never seem to make an impact - much of the funding is diverted to non-related activities. (In defense of this practice, most government departments get their "operational" budgets squeezed every year, so robbing the "gravy train" as it rolls through town is often the only way to keep their department running day-to-day.)
Don't get me wrong: I'm no bureaucrat-basher. By and large, everyone I know in government is decent, honest and hard-working. But the compensation system does not reward people for efficiency or productivity.