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.'"
Similar (Score:4, Interesting)
Nothing stopping it now. (Score:5, Interesting)
Civil War (Score:4, Interesting)
Mass protests have done nothing to stop the war in Iraq...what would it take?
My recent experience (Score:5, Interesting)
I asked the loan guy what he would do if the report said I was a terrorist... He said "I'd excuse myself to the restroom, get in my car, drive at least five miles away, then call my boss!"
FREE FMR. REP TRAFFICANT! (Score:-1, Interesting)
You'll see it starting in 2005, (Score:5, Interesting)
Get real (Score:5, Interesting)
It is in fact not at all like what the East German secret police (Stasi) did during the cold war. There was no legislative shell game to play because the legislature was a sham. The scope of individual liberty was so small that there was no comparable initiative from Stasi. There was no need to sift through large amounts of data about citizens to find out what they needed to know. Activities were all duly registered, and all records were available to them. Elaborate systems of informants kept tabs on any person of interest.
It's hard to believe that anyone old enough to remember the cold war would say something so ridiculous. American domestic intelligence activities take place in a society where individuals enjoy broad latitude of action outside of state control. Without that context, total information awareness or whatever it has become would not even be a dream in a spies mind.
Re:This just keeps happening (Score:5, Interesting)
Now how do Those with Power "sell" to the public? By voicing the standard fare benefit programs that lead to better healthcare, better education, defense, lowered taxes, creation of new jobs, consumer protections, etc.
After your post, I can't help but view these things as being dangling fishing lures baited with carrots.
Re:I like this (Score:5, Interesting)
'Ya know, that's wonderful, but let's be rational about this. 3,000 deaths... a staggering number, right? However, it is hardly the most tragic thing ever to happen: "In 2002, an estimated 17,419 people died in alcohol-related traffic crashes--an average of one every 30 minutes. These deaths constitute 41 percent of the 42,815 total traffic fatalities. (NHTSA, 2003)" [from MADD [madd.org].] Don't get me wrong... 9/11 was no doubt a significant event. I just mean to say that the threat posed by it pales in comparison to so many of the threats that surround us every day and which go largely unnoticed.
Even if we assume that 9/11 represented such a grave threat as to cause us to consider the radical restructuring of the very nature of our rights, then we must ask if that is a productive course of action. Remember when TIME magazine ran the cover article [time.com] claiming that not enough was done to prevent 9/11, even with the Phoenix memo and other warnings? So, please, remind me again how TIA will prevent a "second 9/11?"
While you may be ready to give up your rights in response to a vauge threat (color scale of doom, anyone?) and to passively take hook, line and sinker, there remain those of us who still value the lives lost back in the late 1700s... the lives which won us this freedom in the first place.
Re:Big government (Score:1, Interesting)
There is no privacy for public sex.
Obligatory Tolkien reference (Score:5, Interesting)
"In the language of the Elder Days, 'Arda' signified the World and all that is in it." -- from The Encyclopedia of Arda [glyphweb.com]
I guess it's a suitably ambitious acronym for the project.
Re:I like this (Score:5, Interesting)
If there were going to be another terrorist attack, don't you think *something* would already have happened, even if it was just a Hammas-style bus bombing?
When even the normally insane Pat Buchanan writes a lengthy, thoughtful, and accurate essay on why the "war on terror" is a sham - and it gets the cover of a conservative magazine [amconmag.com], that should set off alarm bells in everyones' heads.
Al Qaeda already got what they wanted - they blew up some Americans, sent the US on its way to becoming a totalitarian state, isolated it from its allies (particularly in the Middle East), *and* as a bonus Iraq will soon be converted into a hardline Islamic nation. They didn't even lose their leader in the process.
What could they possibly gain by sticking their necks out again?
Getting across the wall (Score:5, Interesting)
I lived in West Berlin for over a year oh so long ago. I used to make kindof a study of the wall. Even brought back a piece of it, long before it came down and was sold in pieces in the US like pet rocks. (taking the piece home made kindof a funny story. I was taken off the subway by plainclothes policemen who thought I was going to use it to vandalize something. I switched to English and told them I was an American tourist who was bringing home a souvenir, so they let me go, rock and all)
From what I remember, there was "the wall" - that part that is famous in pictures, with the graffiti and all. Incidently, it was covered/topped with what looked like a continuous cylinder maybe 2 or 3 feet in diameter along the top. I imagine that would have been very hard to get past without special equipment. Behind the wall was the no man's land with a small access road for patrols and the antitank ditch in it. Behind that was a somewhat shorter inner wall as well.
Of course, "the wall" was different in different places. In some places it was partly made up of buildings. Additionally, the western subway went under parts of East Berlin. You could sometimes see guards in the stations in the Eastern part.
It was an interesting study in security. As the wall changed in form due to the changing geography, infrastructure, and so forth, you could see how one who wanted out would attempt to choose the weakest link. One guy built a flat car and drove under the checkpoint gates. Another tightrope walked over the wall (IIRC). And so forth.
Troll (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate people who say that if you don't like it, then you can just leave. No! If you don't like the way something is done, you change how it's done. Grow a pair of balls, man.
i used to work for TIA (Score:5, Interesting)
I ended up in the job, as is always the way, by drifting from one task to another inside the contractor until I ended up doing anti-terrorist work - a classic "slippery slope".
I did the only honest thing I felt I could - I quit. Of course, I'm not going to claim I was any sort of hero. Because I didn't like why I was working, I didn't like my job, and as a software programmer, it wasn't too hard to find another job. But, I did quit a good job for essentially political reasons.
I mention this for 2 reasons: 1) If people refused to do the work, refused to take the jobs, the program would never succeed (I know it's easy to say - I have no kids to feed - but still, it's true). Hell, people fled the country to avoid fighting in Vietnam. 2) It was common knowledge that there was little risk in having TIA go away - everything would stay the same (and has, at my old company). 3) What we were doing was not secret - never was. But nobody knew anyway, and the people running the show liked it that way. Security through obscurity.
Re:Similar (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:send your thanks to these people (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Getting across the wall (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at Brandenburger Tor late a Sunday night. I didn't realise it was closed. I sat in the empty bleachers and a West Berlin cop hailed me. 'You'd better get out of there', he said. 'Why?' I asked.
'Look up at that guard tower on the east side', he said. 'See that guard there? See what he's doing? He's got his gun trained on you.'
'Hold on, I'm coming back with you!' I yelped, and jumped down the bleachers and walked off with the West Berlin cop.
Look may they bought BOXCUTTERS, oh no! (Score:3, Interesting)
fear and terror makes money --it funds the military industrial complex and helps slow growth of other countries by allowing us to continue destabilizing them economically and politically. Cuba anyone? This is a control mechanism that will be used to reduce citizens rights and dissent in the US, not just to hunt terrorists. and it will perpetuate the OH NO the TERROR ALERT WENT UP! paranoia because all it will find is false positives anyway. it's about as useless as stoping cars at an airport to make sure they dont have explosives. hello, we'd hit a school, tyvm.
Re:This just keeps happening (Score:3, Interesting)
My question is, knowing that this would happen given the advances in technology, short of running for office what are we (the technologically inclined) doing to keep the playing field level? Other than Lessigs challenge [francl.org] and Applied autonomy [appliedautonomy.com] what else are we doing?
I realize that we aren't all cut out for leadership roles but we can do things to combat governmental excesses and restrictions on freedom. We gave the common user macros and excel for power over office data, what are we giving them for power over personal data?
Re:Getting across the wall (Score:2, Interesting)
I do have a piece of that wall though.
You should be made an *honorary* American for pulling the trick of disguising yourself as an American tourist....it's up to you to decide if the recognition is reward or punishment
Re:Why ... (Score:3, Interesting)
No mod points for me on this topic. But well worth it. IMO, it annoys me to no end when people use this "defense". "I don't care if Marijuana is illegal, I don't smoke it." "I don't care if <insert any of the many inane things that are illegal in the US here> is illegal, I don't do <said act>" This is *not* an excuse to sit back and do absolutely nothing while The Constitution is slowly dissolved. If I'm not mistaken, didn't Bush say we're at War with Terrorism? A never-ending war, seeing as how it's got no conditions FOR it to end? It's like the War On Drugs. The War On Illiteracy. The War on whatever. This country is ALWAYS at war. We're taught to fear everything. Ever notice what's on the news? Crime, crime, crime, bad news, more crime and the weather. Oh, can't forget the sports. We've had ONE ATTACK on our country. Now, ever since then, we've been hiding with our guns pointed at our doors waiting for someone to twitch. A population that lives in fear will look for someone in AUTHORITY for answers, that's what we're taught to do. Now, the Government has us constantly looking at each other and asking....is s/he a terrorist? Maybe they are...they look different than we do, and that guy over there...he acts...different. We're slowly becoming a nation of intolerants. I see it every day. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me to watch the fear and paranoia that have taken root in this country over the last few years. Fear is also the best way to control a population, think about it. In light of the newest "TERRORIST THREAT(TM)", then a few million stolen by a business doesn't seem to matter that much does it? Oh, and those people being held...not to worry, they were "different" too, just look at their names...nothing to worry about [/sarcasm] Look around you people, pay attention not only to WHAT is going on, but What is being said about it, and most importantly *WHY* it's being said.
In closing, I'm reminded of something from around the time of 9/11. It's a quote but I do not remember from whom at this point. " After the bombings, they could have told us to learn CPR, they could have told us to arm ourselves, they could have told us to donate our time or money to charities. They didn't. Instead, they told us to shop." (Horribly mis-quoted and I apologize... if anyone knows the quote I'm talking about I'd really appreciate posting it..)
Not trying to be FlameBait or a Troll, simply sharing the world how I see it.
Standard Procedure for Political Hot-Potatoes (Score:1, Interesting)
SDI was handled the same way in the late 1980s. Funding was essential terminated but a plan was long in place deal with a loss of funding by breaking up the project and placing the key technology development in the hands of "foster parent" projects and agencies, with the explicit intention of keeping development apace and of reuniting the project if funding returned. Much of the BSTS program was to be rolled into the DSP follow-on project, for example. The Army BMD got the kinetic interceptors charters which looked a lot like Patriot-2 (the missle, not the law). The computing got rolled into other systems that had similar mission environment needs like computers for Mars rovers. The original Air Force owners just kept the lights on as project managers.
The whole program absolutely never died. This is why Bush was able to "magically" decide to begin full deployment missile defense recently: with only a minor pause in the late 80s for the sake of appearances, it has be moving ahead as originally planned despite Congress and the American public thinking it was in the past and dead.
Re:Have you been paying attention lately? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. Gore lost by less than the number of votes that went to the Communist Party candidate. Nader was blamed because his party was the "third party". Behind the third, party, though, were a lot of "minor parties", any one of which could have swung the election.
The problem here is the US electoral system. Your only hope is to vote strategically. Vote for a third party if you're in a "safe" district and vote for a major party if you're not. This way, the third party gets over the magic 5% threshold, and a not-so-bad major party gets in. This was the essence of "Nader trading" in 2000.
Re:This just keeps happening (Score:2, Interesting)
Look, real life is about compromise. For better or for worse, we live under a two-party system, just as Americans before us have for close to 250 years. Voting for Nader isn't going to change our system--it'll just make the fringe he represents look even more extremist and out of touch with the needs of everyday Americans.
I'm repeating myself with this post; you might want to read this editorial [dyndns.org] I wrote the other day.
Re:Get real (Score:2, Interesting)
closer to the viper's nest you are ( Washington DC ) the worse it gets. States like Maryland, Virgina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
etc. are far more fascist than other states I won't mention, because I don't want too many assholes from the above states moving there
Trust me, out west there are many people who don't think too much of the federal government, and are in some cases ready to fight rather than knuckle under.
RTFP (Score:2, Interesting)
And if you want to get into an argument about how the US has greater constitutional freedoms than any other country, let's have it.
You remind me of a typical lib. - Challenge his stand on national security, and he responds, "don't question my patriotism." Uh, when did I do that, knucklehead?
Offtopic rant (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry for this offtopic rant, but statements like these really piss me off:
Jeez. Do you know how ignorant that paragraph makes you seem? You need the basic rights like due process and a fair trial to actually establish for a fact that these people are "combatant terrorists".
They may be, but there is no fscking way of knowing, unless they are given the rights, which has been explicitly been taken away from them. How complicated is that to understand?!?
Ofcourse, G. W. Bush haven't understood this at all [unol.org], but this should be no surprise. I quote: "the only thing I know for certain is that these are bad people". How does he know?
But let's be consistent in our reasoning at least. Since murder is also a sever crime, I suggest we remove all security that the law provides for fair trials, if the poeple are accused for murder. After all they are murderers and don't deserve any legal protection, now do they?
Last I checked, some of these "combatant terrorists" held which were release after only 18 months, was found to be a taxi-driver and his ride [amnesty.org]. I think you should consider the possibility that the people giving out "terrorists", has aproximately the same credability as those informing the US about Iraqi WMD.
Re:I think data mining is scary (Score:1, Interesting)
What?!
What are you talking about?!
Are you really that paranoid, or do you just play one on
Not the real issue (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone else pointed out in some other slashdot/k5-discussion (I've googled and looked, but I can't find a link), the people who are really in power are not elected at all.
The president may be the one who "makes" the decissions, but he has advisors and generally a big staff. There are also those who are head of variuos goverment agencies, who are largely influencial.
When you look upon us politics in general, you will find that alot of what the president is apparently doing, really is the work of someone who has been sitting in the administration for 10, 20, maybe 30 years.
The people with real power are not elected. That's why these things seem to happen regardless.
At least that's what I claim, for what that's worth.
Re:US CON says otherwise (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that if you can't declare war on it then it's probably not a good idea to fight a war with it either.
The kid next door. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty much a given, I'd say. When they finally crawl out and start taking people away for muttering seditious 'thought-crime' anti-government stuff, I'll probably be hauled off and killed or humiliated or whatever along with the rest of them.
Fine, and to hell with 'em.
What's a painful, miserable death anyway? You have to go somehow. A red-hot fire-poker shoved somewhere indecent can't be any worse than extended bowl cancer or getting hit by a truck.
I might even be reduced to fear and groveling and begging and all that other stuff which is almost a certainty when torture is involved. Doesn't mean they win, though.
Anybody working on the Dark Side is beneath contempt. You are losers and you will fade forgotten from the eye of the Universe. Nothing but a speed bump; a challenge. --That and I'll fight you every last step of the way. I'll point out your spineless, dark-side, un-loveable qualities until you finally rip my tongue out in pathetic rage. And then my eyes will follow you with disdain until you jab those out as well.
And when I come back, I'll be the clear-eyed kid next door who you secretly both love and despise and wish would validate your existence by letting you tag along. And on our ever diverging paths we will go until you are nothing but a dream in the past.
Souls develop, and the decisions you make today are who you become tomorrow. In which direction are you working?
-FL "The biggest crime was convincing everybody that this life is all there is."
Indeed. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Very true.
Unfortunately, and you probably realize this, the watchers are not looking for terrorists.
Fear = Power, and Power = Control; The Power to control the things which they Fear.
An ever tightening circle.
IBM supplied Hitler with the punch card machine technology [ibmandtheholocaust.com] which made it possible for the Nazi regime to track down through blood relations all the Jews which were sent to camps for destruction.
Terrorists? Puh-lease.
-FL
dissenting view on TIA (Score:4, Interesting)
The irony is that this tool would be much more useful and effective if they knew which way to point it. Rather than blanketing every bit of data everywhere, why not send in spies, get a vague idea who may be involved and then focus on that group rather than wasting resources everywhere. Go from 6 billion targets to 1 million or so and your odds go way up. It may be old fashioned, but that method got us through the Cold War and I don't understand why it can't work for the 'War on Terror'(which is a misnomer but I won't get into that). We need decent human intelligence. Without decent human intelligence all of these fancy computers will be next to useless, which is our current predicament. Information is useless without knowledge.
And as for the people who are getting all freaked out by the government, especially on this geeky forum, it is the powermongers/wannabe dictators that should be afraid of us. Whenever I imagine a worst case scenario, where fascists take over, I imagine what I would do to fight back. Theoretically, I know how to shut the whole system down: communications, telephone, internet, power, transportation et cetera. Knowledge is power. But I believe that most of the people who run the national security apparatus are patriots who believe in liberty. I find it difficult to believe they would stoop to dictatorship. But if they do go too far, I'm not afraid of them, and they had better fear me. If anyone truly believs our liberty is being undermined, it is their duty to stand up and fight...anyone???