Bruce Sterling On Total Information Awareness

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."

Comments

Always a problem...

[TWX]

Gathering information on people before they have done anything wrong is always a problem, especially if these people know that it is being collected. It makes poisioning the data pool attractive, even if it's only something as stupid as magazine subscriptions, email account names, aliases (which are legal as long as they're not used to deceive for nefarious purposes), and credit transactions.

The government is most likely to be able to track transactions that occur digitally, or require storage of information on computers that are not under the control of the individual whose data is being collected. Do you think that it's likely that terrorists will use these means, now that it's been announced that the government is collecting it? I'd think that they're more likely to buy guns from someone who has switched from running drugs into the country to running guns, to contact their fellow agents through 'chance' encounters, and to transact whatever seemingly legitimate business they use either with cash or through legitimate electronic transactions, which will make them blend into the electronic noise just like everyone else. How is this going to help matters?

The government already knows when one buys a new handgun through legitimate channels, through the Brady Law. They already should know about most of those who have explosives experience, since that is usually military training based to begin with, and demolitions companies, mining companies, and anyone else legitimately using explosives has to get their employees licensed. "Cyberterrorism" is an absolute joke of a term as long as easily broken-into OSes like anything Microsoft has ever put out is still in the mainstream and is still being used as a server, and there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of other examples like these.

I don't see how collecting all of this data is going to help.

TIA or NO TIA it will happen anyway

[Crashmarik]

Lewinsky, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich's book deal, David Dinkins lack of tax returns.

Data Mining is here. While the Republicans are more astute in the practical applications of tech and the Democrats tend toward the hip useless gadgets, Both sides are gearing up and will be using data mining against each other.

I have always said that KGB agents must have wept when they realised the information your typical marketing or credit card company have on the american citizen.

Poindexter may be a criminal and a boob American Express isnt.

Renaming It Shows What They Think About us

[SilentMajority]

It shows that they THINK we're gullable morons.

Just by renaming it to sound anti-terrorist, are we supposed to shut up and stop questioning it?

Instead of making our government BIGGER & MORE INTRUSIVE & STRIPPING AWAY OUR RIGHTS, why don't we investigate how 9/11 was allowed to happen when we had ALL THE INFO REQUIRED to prevent it?!?!?

Oh, I forgot--the investigation into that was quietly squashed without much media attention but we got color-coded alerts to make us feel that something "real" appropriate is being done.

"Hey, lets rename this unpopular law/project/war/etc. so people think it has to do with anti-terrorism, they'll shut up for sure especially if the media makes anyone speaking against it appear stupid, weak, liberal, unpatriotic, etc. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a bunch of unpopular shit done what would've caused riots/impeachments just a few year ago! Best of all, when people start to ask questions about the Pres or VP dealings with Enron or Halliburton again, we can just change the terror alert color so the media can refocus on that without resorting another murder case in California."

"And just in case we don't have any more terrorism in the USA, lets go piss off the Palestinians and make the Middle-eastern countries think we're gonna invade them--that'll stir up enough shit to make at least another group of crazies blow something up here--and we can milk that bombing to our advantage just like 9/11! We'll be silencing our critics and getting unpopular initiatives done for the next 50 years using this strategy!"

I'm obviously exaggerating to make a point but really, don't you think there's a grain of truth to associating unpopular initiatives with anti-terrorism just to get people to stop questioning it?

Well

[heli0]

It seems that they can not even perform basic background checks on their own employees: CIO of Department of Homeland Security Suspended. Seems she got her "doctorate in computer information systems" from a phony college.

Yeah, that is the type of thing that inspires confidence.

great, like Reality TV 24x7

[Anonymous Coward]

..but this time you and I get to be in front of the cameras, unasked, and everything will be archived and indexed on permanent storage, including (especially) a complete record of your online and telecommunication activity. Scott McNealy would say "get over it", but government will use this data to protect society against potential threats - and eventually, any kind of dissent may be considered the seed of a potential serious threat to society, as Orwell predicted.

Re:my thoughts.....

[snarkh]

Innovations are neither good or bad in themselves. It is their applications which make them such. And the potential applications of those innovations by Poinedexter and co. is terrifying.

A researcher would do well to think carefully about the potential usage before taking any money to work on TIA.

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

[coyote-san]

Free Inquiry published a list of the the 14 defining characteristics of fascism a few months ago. In case the site gets slashdotted, a quick summary is:

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism. Hitler had the Nuremberg Rallies, we will have the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City just blocks from "ground zero," and just 10 days before the third anniversity. This is the latest nominating convention in history. (Hopefully it will not also be the "last" one.)
2. Distain for the recognition of human rights. Forget Guatmo, look at who's on the "no fly" list. When was the last time you heard of a Quaker activist committing violent acts?
3. Identication of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. All Muslims are terrorists. All "liberals" and "moderates" support terrorism.
4. Supremacy of the military. This is a weird split - this administration has treated soldiers, ex-soldiers, and their families contemptously. But at the same time, there's no question that these are rich years to be a preferred military contractor.
5. Rampant sexism. "Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution." No comment necessary.
6. Controlled mass media. "Sometimes directly controlled by the government, sometimes indirectly controlled by government media, sympathetic media and executives." FCC decision last week, Fox News. No comment necessary.
7. Obsession with national security. Post 9/11, a lot of this is justified. But the actions don't match the words - Bush talks national security, but has repeatedly ignored pressing matters to focus on things of relatively little importance. The Afghanistan countryside is important. North Korea, with an active nuclear program and proven missiles and located so close to the industrial centers of South Korea and Japan (and potentially able to reach the US within a few years) is important. Iraq, as the professional intelligence corp knew and events have proven, was not.
8. Religion and government are intertwined. "Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders." Besides the language, Bush always drops into a "Hellfire sermon" cadence when he's trying to emphasize a point.
9. Corporate power is protected. No comment necessary.
10. Labor power is suppressed. No comment necessary.
11. Distain for intellectuals and the arts. Besides the historic contempt for "liberal professors" and any artist willing to speak her mind (Dixie Chicks), I see a lot of anti-intellectualism in anti-tech attitudes. Are so many jobs going overseas (or to H1B workers) here because of economics alone, or because we tend to be highly curious and open to discussing ideas?
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment. Ashcroft. No other comment necessary.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Halliburton and Vice President Cheney. Michael Powell (FCC) and Colin Powell (Sec. of State). The Bush crowd - a group with a history that makes the Kennedys look like choir boys (if you can find any media gutsy enough to cover the story).
14. Fradulent elections. Florida - governored by the brother of one of the candidates (see above). The strange obsession with replacing paper ballots with unauditable electronic voting machines. The connection between those manufacturers and key Republican backers... and the Russian Mafia.

If you accept the premise of the article, I don't think there's any doubt that we're close to fascism today. It's still early and we could reverse course in less than 18 months. But I think there's little doubt that history will observe that the US came close to losing WW-II 60 years after the fact.

I'm also sure that many of these people have no idea that they're fascist. Hitler was not Satan incarnate, Nazi Germany did not come into existence overnight, and we must always be on guard against history repeating.

As for the OP's uninformed comments, the proper description for the countries he described as "socialist" is "authoritarian" -- and there's no doubt that this country is shifting towards authoritarism in addition to fascism.