Slashdot Mirror
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."
If the /. community objects to this, the solution is clear... we mount an open source bid for the contract, which should (as the product will be free as in beer) be guaranteed to win the contract on price grounds.
:-)
Then we just 'do a mozilla' and keep adding wonderful new features but never actually deliver the damn thing
problem solved!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
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!)
Before the *DIS*information starts flying fast and furious (doh, wait, it already has!) I recommend everyone read BAA 02-08, the request for proposals for technology that will be transitioned into the TIA system. Here is the link:
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/BAA02-08.pdf
This BAA describes exactly what RESEARCH DARPA is looking to fund (emphasis on research: DARPA is NOT a procurement agency, and DARPA is NOT an operational agency). They are not buying off-the-shelf systems, and they are not setting up systems to spy on people. There is even a component to this BAA regarding privacy-protecting technologies.
It is worth noting that many of the problems for which this BAA is looking for national-security-style solutions are problems common to many organizations, as well as fundamental computer-science questions. Not the malevolent stuff that Wired and others would have you think.
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.
No they aren't. Not on americans at least. Do your self a favor and pick up the book 'Body of Secrets'. It is a no bullshit account of what goes on at the NSA. It is amazingly well researched and will fill you in on the fact that the the NSA is prohibited on sying on Americans within America (if you are in another country that is a different matter). If you are sitting down watching Nascar in Nashville and Osama Bin Laden calls you on the phone, NSA procedure is to record that phone call and note that it was Bin Laden, but you are simply identified as 'American Citizen'. If a customer to the NSA, requests to know who 'American Citizen' is, and has due cause, the NSA will reveal it, but this is the extreme circumstance. Oh, and the good part is that politicans never get recorded at all :).
one other interesting fact, the NSA is exempted from any US law that does not specifically name the NSA....
Everyone should read Body of Secrets before claiming to know something about the NSA.
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."
How does being an aethist make you unAmerican? I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts on this.
Read George H.W. Bush's thoughts; that's probably what the grandparent post was referring to.
> Atheism has no more substantial foundataion for ethics than simple personal preference.
This is, of course, nonsense, as it assumes that the only possible source for moral or ethical
values is the belief in a deity or deities.