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Feds Open 'Total' Tech Spy System
Diesel Dave writes "A Wired article reports: 'On Wednesday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will begin awarding contracts for the design and implementation of a Total Information Awareness (TIA) system...The Total Information Awareness program, with its ability to provide persistent storage of everything from credit card, to employment, to medical, to ISP records, is a recipe for civil liberties disaster unless there are provisions for citizens to find out who is looking at their records and to see and correct those records.' The foundation for the omnipotent National ID database has now been laid."
I've seen it in the 70's with the notion of a Corporate Data Base, in the 80's with Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) systems, and in the 90's with Data Warehouses. It's nice to think of a single source of information providing all the answers, but it inevitably turns out too expensive to build and impossible to keep current. I see no evidence that such a system would have prevented the attacks on 9/11. But some IT infrastructure companies are going to get rich on this boondoggle.
As a professor of mine in college once said; "Computers make great filing cabinets, but lousy guessers."
It's one thing for such systems to exist in private hands, using information collected through noncoercive means.
It's another thing entirely for it to be not merely difficult but downright illegal to avoid them.
Remember folks, the only reason we don't live in an Orwellian nightmare world is actually because it isn't technologically feasible.
As soon as it's possible and practical, in the next few years, it will happen on a wide and broad scale. If it's unpopular, they'll simply not publicize its use. If a few innocents are harrased by it (activists, anarchists, pagans, atheists, and other similar unAmericans), you won't hear a word. If by some sheer coincidence it actually assists in finding a terrorist pre-crime, they still won't say a word.
And I'm sure they'll find a few other uses for it. I mean if you're commiting a crime, it's a crime, no matter what, so what's the problem?
(Hmm, Citizen #95235345 just bought a DVD-R unit and downloaded a copy of DeCSS. Set his Awareness Level to 15%, and send a copy of his Dossier to Media Control for further study. Excellent, we might yet meet our Enforcement quota this week!)
It really makes me feel fuzzy as hell when I think about where my hard-earned tax dollars are going to.
really fuzzy.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
How much time before a person or corporation bribes someone on the inside for the info?
I'd say the future employee is probably figuring out what to spend his/her new revenue stream on, from the moment their contract is signed.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
There are government agencies, especially law enforcement, whose existence is threatened by this person. They have full access to the complete records of this persons life: medical problems, personal purchases, friends, lovers (including unmarried ones), etc. To silence this person, they will have the ability to make any embarrassing information public (none of which may even have been illegal). Even if the person has the strength of character to withstand this, the persons message will be lost under the media coverage of the scandalous aspects of this person's life: his pr0n preferences, former friends who turned out to be bad guys, extramarital affairs, etc.
This type of this has serious implications for free speech. Even if you are a nobody who will never have anything important to say and who has nothing to hide anyway, there are people to have something to say and have the right to keep the private aspects of their lives private while saying it.
tato (and tato only)
This post is strictly opinion, including the spelling.
Lets see... what was the last major governemnt that:
Tracked information about all its citizens
Required you to carry federal identifiation whenever you left the house
Required "papers" for any sort of travel outside of your home town
And yet here in 2002, we as a nation seem to be jumping for joy that all these things are being talked about and implimented in our country. Yea, it's all supposedly for national defense, but Hitler started his reign by imposing all those rules and ideas for the good of the country. How far will we take it this time?
Why can't the Fed just look at the easy way out: stop imposing our will on other countries by military force. Just get out of the Middle East and let them fight it out amongst themselves. Problem solved.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
This excerpt taken from a paper written by Dijkstra in 1986 seems very appropriate:
"...society tolerates the computing profession because of its incompetance. It is our incopetence that makes us, though expensive, relatively harmless: were we as competent as we would like to be, we would offer the perfect implementation of the complete police state. We would be the darling of any dictatorship"
Food for thought.
To paraphrase the AC:
The only people who are worried about these types of programs are the ones with something to hide
The fact that an AC said this deserves either a +1 Ironic or -1 Ignorant. Unfortunately you didn't include any sarcasm tags to help us decide.
Internal or ad-hoc identifiers are much worse than a public, well-designed system of national ID numbers. Among other things, if you don't know your secret government ID number or record locator, it's much harder for you to force the US government to comply with privacy regulations--even with a court ourder--they'll just claim that they "couldn't find the records" or that they "must have overlooked them" and get away with it even if found out. And if the government makes up their own internal system or uses social security numbers, you are much more likely to be the victim of identity theft or mistaken identity.
In order to protect our privacy, we need good privacy legislation that covers both government agencies and companies. And in order to protect our privacy, we need a well-designed system of national ID numbers--preferably numbers that are large and have a non-trivial internal checksum. Both of these would have to be decided at the ballot box.
The reason why this isn't going to happen is because the people in the US that are mainly concerned about privacy are also people with libertarian leanings. They just don't understand that the only way to protect privacy is through strong government regulations.
If this turns out half as bad as it looks, I'm all for a new American Revolution. Worked in 1776, I think it'd work now if we actually educated the public about this bullshit.
Go ahead and arrest me, Ascroft, you totalitarian son of a bitch, you'll have to do me like you did Padilla; have the military hold me in a brig without bringing charges, 'cause I a'int done a damn thing wrong. Or maybe I should just start looking around for another country. This country is great, but I'm starting to wonder whether the public at large is populated by morons or people too scared to come out of their bunkers. Freedom is something you have to want and want bad. It's incredibly delicate, and we're seeing it torn apart before our eyes. 1984? I don't think so. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. If America is populated by pussies, then just let me know and I'll find another place to live where they actually want their freedom. Sept 11 was an attack on our way of life. Judging by the way things have gone the last 11 months (patriot act, data mining, warrantless arrests, detention of American CITIZENS without a trial/lawyer/grand jury, etc) I'd say they kicked our asses. Cower in the dark if you like, but I will never call you a patriot. I was at the Statue of Liberty today, and it was still closed; you can't go inside. Why? The people of America are too scared to tell Bush to re-open it. What does it say when the people of this country are barred from entering our greatest symbol of freedom? What the hell does that say?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The purpose of this is political control, not counter terrorism. Please see this for mroe background and very interesting info on the IAO symbol:
. ht ml#79173969
http://www.cryptogon.com/2002_07_14_blogarchive
((((Christians have more to fear from undemocratic abuses of power than atheists or subscribers to other religions.))))
you mean stuff like not being able to use government funds to further their religion, or have mandatory school prayer, or print the 10 commandments in public schools?
Boo fucking hoo.
At least the atheists want all religion OUT, instead of wanting theirs IN.
(sorry about the CAPITALS)