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Feds Open 'Total' Tech Spy System

Posted by timothy on from the what-privacy dept.

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."

5 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Open source is the answer by Andy_R · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  2. Re:There are comanies that already do this. by cduffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. it's coming... by Dr.+Awktagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!)

    1. Re:it's coming... by __aadhrk6380 · · Score: 5, Funny

      (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!)

      Oh my GOD! The fed's are going to start awarding karma!

  4. Re:NSA Authority by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.