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Bruce Sterling On Total Information Awareness

Posted by timothy on from the seeing-the-future-and-walking-backward dept.

securitas writes "Declan McCullagh interviews Bruce Sterling about Total Information Awareness (renamed Terrorist Information Awareness and raising concerns) or 'Poindexter's nutty scheme' as Sterling thinks of it. He predicts TIA will destabilize the government and lead to internal KGB-style coups. Whether you agree with him or not it makes for thought-provoking reading."

3 of 488 comments (clear)

  1. To quote the constitution... by PS-SCUD · · Score: 4, Informative

    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonalbe searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

    but that seems to have been forgotten, along with.."Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."
    Campaing finance reform restrictions on commericals 60 days before elections.

    and "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
    Every law restricting non-criminals from owning certain types of weapons.

    Some times I wonder if legislatures even fscking read the constitution any more.

    --


    "Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
    1. Re:To quote the constitution... by BernardMarx · · Score: 5, Informative

      Rewriting the constitution: It's not just for legislators anymore!

      ARTICLE IV OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be received.

      Recent decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court have held that police can:

      Search you home upon the consent of someone who has no authority to give same. (Illinois vs. Rodriquez)

      May search every room in your home including the basement and attic without a warrant if they are arresting you in a private residence. Evidence seized may be used in court. (Maryland vs. Bule)

      Hold you under arrest and incarcerate you for 48 hours or longer without charging you for a crime. (County of Riverside vs. McLaughlin)

      May question you and elicit confessions from you while you are incarcerated without identifying themselves as police officers or advising you of your rights. (Illinois vs. Perkins)

      Subject motorists to mandatory sobriety tests without any indication that they have been drinking, or their driving is impaired. (Michigan State Police vs. Sitz)

      Stop your car based upon an "anonymous tip" which the court described as "completely lacking in the necessary indicia of reliability." (Alabama vs. White)

      May stop, detain and question you anytime, anywhere and for any reason even if there is no evidence or indication of any illegality or wrong doing. (Orange County vs. Lopez)

      May record and use as evidence telephone calls made or received from a cordless phone without a warrant and without violating your right to privacy. (Tyler vs. Berodt)

  2. Re:Sour Grapes by Allen+Varney · · Score: 4, Informative

    If it's anything like his columns for Wired, it will be filled with bitterness over the 2000 elections spilling over into everything he writes about.

    Can't believe I'm taking time to refute this silly and groundless statement. Sterling's first column for Wired, issue 10.12 (December 2002), covered Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index -- no mention of the 2000 elections. Subsequent issues to date:

    • 11.01 (Jan 2003): "The Cybersecurity Industrial Complex" -- upbeat overview of various government bureaus
    • 11.02: "Dumb Mobs" -- protests in Florence against globalism; mentions "The New Imperial Order" in passing, but basically about European protest movements
    • 11.03: "Silent But Deadly" -- parallels between Enron and the old Lockheed aerospace skunkworks
    • 11.04: "The Secret War Machine" -- about the Iran-Contra scandal, and how the same spirit motivates the current War on Terror; maybe you could wilfully distort this into "bitterness about the election," if you didn't mind sounding like a complete nutcase
    • 11.05: Space race between China and India
    • 11.06: "There's Something About Rummy" -- this is the only column that meets the "bitterness" test. Jeez, pretty sensitive, aren't you?