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Funding for TIA All But Dead
Shackleford writes "Wired has an article saying that the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies: death by legislation. The Senate's $368 billion version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, released from committee to the full Senate on Wednesday, contains a provision that would deny all funds to, and thus would effectively kill, the Terrorism Information Awareness program, formerly known as Total Information Awareness. TIA's projected budget for 2004 is $169 million."
At least they are putting some strong language into this version of ... or to any other department, agency or
the bill "No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the
Department of Defense
element of the Federal Government, may be obligated or expended on
research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness
program."
If the full senate doesn't approve this bill, the entire issue is
pretty much stillborn. Assuming they approve it though, there are
still several more steps for it to go through.
The main concern at this point is what happens when the bill goes to
committee. This process has always held concerns for me, but it
worries me that whether or not the defunding stays in the bill or not
is so dependant on one person. "The defunding has a chance of
surviving committee " Schwartz says "If Stevens is behind it, then it
almost certainly will happen.". I would have felt more comfortable if
he had said "It will almost certainly succeed."
Let's just hope he's behind defunding it. Removing the defunding
would completely remove the teeth from this bill IMO.
I also didn't see any comments from President Bush. As I understand
it, he is supportive of the TIA. Will he sign a bill that is going to
kill one of his pet projects? Again, let's hope so.
There are still a lot of steps for this bill to go through before it
becomes law. Progress is being made, but let your senator know that
you are against TIA, and maybe this bill will make it.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
An Executive Summary of TIA released by DARPA is available here. An explanation and overview of TIA, again by DARPA, can be found here.
Unique signatures are rare.
There'll soon be some more funding for it.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
If this story was on fark, it would of been tagged "obvious"
except i have one question: what if they simply rename the darned thing? it's only $169 million: in beltway terms, this isn't a whole lot of money.
what worries me is that this could sneak into some other omnibus legislation through a rider under a different and more innocuous name, under a last-minute change to another bill before congress.
i fear this may become a senatorial shell-game.
ed
It looks like the terrorists won, all because a few million Americans didn't want some new shadowy government agency perusing their most confidential records. How un-American.
I'm sleeping easier now.
Consensual sex is boring.
I know I'm responding to a troll, but...
Such would be unconstitutional, as it would be a violation of due process. Just because he has done the same, does not make it right to violate his rights.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
To monitor posts on /. for a small portion (1-2%) of that $368 billion
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Denying funding does not mean there is no money for a project. It simply means that the project will use hidden funding. The U.S. government has established that it does not need to tell its citizens how the citizen's money is spent.
Think about it: he's got a threat out there with a demonstrated ability to perform mass killings, and he'd prefer not to die in a fireball of aviation fuel. Neither would his boss, his boss' replacement, nor any of his immediate colleagues.
Meanwhile, his former colleagues are hounding him because he still doesn't really have a good answer on who mailed the anthrax.
If I ever saw a man grasping for straws, Ashcroft's that man. I think I understand where he's been coming from in all this (ever been hounded by QA and PHBs?), and I feel for him.
Even so, I'm glad TIA is dead.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Couldn't they just change the name of the program again to get around the legisilation?
Hmmm...maybe the Senators were all nervous that a lot of them would be exposed for their own personal "un-American" activities. Ahha! I figured it out!!
Why is there a black car in front of my house...
Posting as directed.
It's just going underground. The funding will not be cut off, it will come from quieter sources. They made a mistake by making the public so aware of the project in the first place. Americans don't want to be spyed on by their own government. Doesn't mean the government can't spy on them, it simply means they can't spy on them openly. Nothing has changed, TIA will continue. I'm living happily in Canada, thank God.
Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
<sarcasm>What a shame. I was looking forward to having an identity chip embedded into my skin to act as my credit card, driver's license, official government identity, travel pass, etc.</sarcasm>
The more I watch "The Running Man" the more I realize how close we are to living in that kind of society.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither!"
Has he had a single good idea?
No seriously, the blurb says this is his second massive failure. What has he succeeded in? (other than the Patriot Act)
[o]_O
I'm not really sure how the entire process works, but I wont really feel confident that TIA is dead until it is officially killed, as opposed to simply not funded.
There is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it's all dark
HAHAHA wow that is so funny! No really! You know you could even substitute the names of other US officials with Ashcroft and it would still be funny!
You know, I just thought about it, I don't remember any US presidency that was hated so much that it was an overt and continuous topic of the media.
Nice to know that congress can get something right. Still a good sign that maybe some heads on capital hill are leveling out a bit and thinking about the long-term effects of enacting liberty-squelching legislation.
I could just be overly optimistic though.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records
(this government has been rated -1, Troll)__________
[Big Brick Wall]
This won't kill Total Information Awareness. After all, information wants to be free!!!
Yay! And there was rejoicing throughout the land!
And then they ate the politicians.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
... has been put off for a little while. But it will come. Sorry, guys, but that's just the nature of information tech. The gov't is not needed for this.
Once info is collected, it can be collected, archived, sold under the table or social-engineered out of you or your bank's representative.
Then, it is simple a matter of storage. Even now, the credit records of all consumers in the United States can be fit onto a single hard disk (assume a 200mb disk, 200 million consumers, and 1000 bytes per record).
Not much can be done about that, except a Butlerian Jihad.
what happens when the program is officially canceled but then still comes to life due to outside funding? is casey rybak available to thwart the terroristic plans of some goof on a train controlling the TIA system with a really small portable satellite dish?
Interesting that "Funding for TIA All But Dead" is the tag on a $169 MILLION budget. Really, I'd say that $400 was the long shot, and the $169 was the "awww shucks, i guess we'll be real thrifty and carefull with this new project and only spend $170 Million". The TIA project is sadly offensive in a USA where the whole shebang is getting budgeted on BORROWED money. Either people have to sit up and decide to pay their taxes for this jibberish or they need to ease up on the Orwellian Nightmare Funding Project... aka TIA.
Maybe they can put this TIA thing back a year and do something about the crumbling inner-city-Detroit, or poor without food/healthcare, or some-other-more-worthy-project.
Really, even with that said, who really thinks that the DoD/CIA/NSA/FBI couldnt come up with the money (even in *addition* to what they spend now) to fund such a project. Dont think just because they are *reporting* to be less serious about it; "hey look - were cutting its funding - its not a priority (since you were so offended..)", this Stasi-Like crap is only gonna get more severe as your country slips into a deeper self-induced paranoia/schitzophrenia... and Bush is driving the bus.
1. It really wasn't intended as a troll. I was sincere.
2. He has effectively repealed most of those archaic 'rights' for all of us, that should apply to him as well.
3. Dammit, you're right.
And I didn't even write it. Mod it up--it's good humor, although not laugh-out-loud hilarious.
It will be funded under plan B. The one where they remember to put the clause, "It's for the children."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
You are sooo busted.
But do you really think TIA will really end? The project will simply go, as they call it, "Dark". When the F-117 was being made, in a project called, I believe, "Deep Blue" do you think money that was on the books was used? No. TIA will "die" in the public, because the project is going dark. End of story. The website will remain the scrappy little inocent bits of HTML it is today, meanwhile under a lake somewhere will be a cluster of computers that are running TIA at full speed.
I remember something Ted Kennedy said a while back in committee, about "obsolete" ideas in the constitution about indivudals witholding taxes so that stuff like the Army couldn't operate without funding. Quote, "That stuff will never happen here in America". IMHO, he's not ultimately correct about this point, but the motivation in making it is pretty strong.
/., aren't you?
I really can't go any further without trolling like 95% of these other posts are. I'm kinda really sick about political stories in
"Wired has an article saying that the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike"
The word you seek is trawl. Now that TIA is dead, the thing America needs is a Total English Awareness program.
A few DMCA bills proposed in Europe, and everyone thinks they'll all pass. This gets killed and everyone thinks it'll still go through. Look, logic will win. There will be no IP in the future--and there's nothing you can do to stop that!
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
no text
a better choice of words than "troll" would be "attempt to data mine". From "troll" I get a picture of the government anonymously inflaming me by mocking my spending habits.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Citizens would only become a threat to the government if the government was deemed fraudulent, as in voter fraud or if the government was behind the 9/11 attacks or if elements of the government were trying to bring about a new world order.
Please mod this down.
insert into activity_tracking_table
(party_flag, date, nick)
values
(true, '7-14-2003', 'Schezar');
They are watching you.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Yes - but -
How much damage can they still do with $169M?
Last I checked, Red Hat Advanced wasn't more than a couple of hundred dollars. Throw in PostgreSQL and Apache SSL, and you have a basic system to throw data into.
It would be a vicious, ugly irony if the budget cut resulted in Department of Homeland Security resorting to exclusive use of Open Source to accomplish their goals, don't you think?
Subscribe for free to my show!
Come on, now, how hard is most of the information that was supposed to be mined for TIA that hard to get anyway?? For $35US you can look in the yellow pages (or, of course, log into a web site), punch in some data, and get a background check of anyone anyway. This includes
...and so on. Corporations wanting to know everything about employees have already created the tools to mine our personal information anyway...do you really thing the gov't can't?
1. Credit statements
2. Job histories
3. Criminal records.
4. Tax records.
Just because the funding is gone, do you really thing the gov't has given up on this? Bad press killed this "initiative" long before this Congress did...but don't worry, they have wizened up. Next time they just won't mention to us that they are doing it...
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
since most americans dont even know the bill of rights here it is. amendment IV is the relevant one here.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
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.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
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 seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Great! Now all the terrorists will be sitting at home eating pie and drinking juice and nobody will have the guts to say the words "aaggle baaggle faggle" three hundred times real quickly backwards while singing the national anthem of Bleveskovolokia and eating three and a half dozen tainted chic peas.
This man is a religious zealot, who has tried in a number of ways to (1) inject his religious extremism into government, and (2) expand his snooping powers by any means necessary (example: TIA). Any number of links would have sufficed, but you get the point.
I feel nothing for Ashcroft, except maybe hatred.
TIA (Thanks in advance).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Wow..
I didn't think -anyone- could reply to that in an interesting, intelligent, or funny way.
You rock.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
No more $900 cups of coffee..
Nearly all of the text of the submission is copied directly from the Wired article. How about some attribution, or at least some of those little 66 99 things?
TIA is run by John Poindexter who was involved in Iran Contra. Iran Contra was a method of bypassing the need to use congressional funding for the Contras by selling arms to Iran and using those funds to do the Job.
These people can generate their own funds, possibly by selling some of the valuable information they collect to various marketing organizations. With the death of investigative reporting, who is going to catch them this time?
Question Reality
"Wired has an article saying that the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies:" Im pretty sure the end of this reads Moderation, since they even say they are trolling.
...could you make sure there is no TIA? TIA.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You made me think...
Imagine (HYPOTHETICALLY!) if the the US Government actually -had- orchestrated 9/11 (or knew about it and allowed it to happen) as part of a larger scheme.
Now imagine if the public at large found out. If there were undeniable proof.
What would happen? How would middle-class America react? That would be the ultimate test of the unity of the American people. Would they actually -do- something about it? Or would the spin-doctors win?
If only there were a World-Sim(tm) I could use to watch something like that unfold.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
.... but first I must go dance on it's grave.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
What you say is very plausible. However, someone told me that, many years ago, when Congress made collecting some data illegal, the CIA moved the data collection to computers in Belgium. A government with a department that is allowed to break the law is an unlawful government.
TIA announced the 169 million dollar budget will pay for exactly one laptop and a year of minimum wage pay to an employee who will search for keywords on google.
"HA-HA!"
Priceless.
But does this mean there won't be as much funding to GIA?
The french are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Ha ha!
But has anyone considered selling Linux to those guys? Considering that most of the "information mining" they will be doing could be done more efficiently and faster by automating it, consider:
Cheap, commodity x86 Beowulf clusters (see google)
Free OS (consider a giant community to provide your organization with bug-fixes for your main OS and tools)
OpenSource tools and OS (easier to modify for your own nefarious deeds)
etc
From my shoes, 169 million would buy one hell of a beowulf cluster, several admins, and a nice group of software developers to write and modify the programs needed. Not to mention that they could earmark parts of that money to fund grants for academically interesting projects that could help further the technology used by the TIA. Hell, Be, Inc survived on the equivalent of 50 million bucks for several years and they managed to crank out a really nice OS.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The great thing about Congress is when they "understand" the issues in our favor. I'm so very glad they and their staffs are doing their homework.
-0.5, Shades of Troll
True Idiocy in America
Get real....
The public opposition which TIA has invoked only means that the project is going "under the public radar." There are a variety of ways that TIA (or whatever it will be called next) can still get funding. The biggest issue IMHO is that the initiative has been pushed into a realm where watchdog groups can no longer monitor it. It would be easy for the project to get bits and pieces of funding from elsewhere like here. There is also decentralized funding, (i.e. - the program is broken up into numerous parts (gathering units) which are all individually funded in their respective areas and can still report to a centralized operations unit (analysis unit) which ties all the intelligence data together, therefore no one area could be an intelligence risk or have a complete picture of what is going on. NEED TO KNOW
But what the hell do I know....
Like the Patriot Act, Leave No Child Behind and Clear Skies initiatives, the best way of figuring out what a Bush effort is NOT about is to pay attention to the name. The "Terrorism" component is an attempt to bludgeon critics of this sick effort. It would do nothing to prevent terrorism. That was never the point. Bush doesn't care that we're less safe then we were. If he did, he'd fund security for our ports, nuclear facilities, water processing plants, etc. But that would interfere with tax cuts, tax cuts and ...oh, yeah, almost forgot, tax cuts.
What I fear is that the project would be funded through other black box line items...
"You don't really believe they paid thousands of dollars for a toilet seat do you?"
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
"Everyone thought the TIA was just another Big Brother wetdream, until the machines came. TIA became self-aware on July 27th, 2006. Within one hour, every American had a terrible credit rating and 16 orders of penis enlargment pills on the way to their homes. Panic ensued. The next day, utilzing the power of that spyware program in Kazaa, TIA appropriated millions of computer do to one thing: hack the U.S. millitary. Within 48 hours, TIA changed its name to SkyNet after trolling on the imdb for a more suitable name. I immediately logged onto slashdot and told everyone what I knew. But only the trolls were left. Then I realized I came to slashdot not to warn people, but to survive."
In Soviet America, TIA trolls YOU!
(However, I believe the word is trawl. As in a trawler.)
Get your own free personal location tracker
disgust
loathing
fury
Those all work well.
I wonder if the US government will fund my electronic terrorism research.
I intend to research how virtual terrorists behave in an simulated environment.
With enough funding I intend to test tactics and responses to troop and equiptment deployments and how to best neutralise any terrorist threat.
Ok.. I'll be playing command and conquer...
Ding Dong! The witch is dead!
TIA is the brainchild of John Poindexter, a key figure from the Iran-Contra scandal, who now heads the research effort at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Critics on the left and right have called TIA an attempt to impose Big Brother on Americans. For years now, the common American Turkey Spider has been a staple of every American's daily diet. Whether it be Turkey Spider sandwiches, fried Turkey Spider, or perhaps Turkey Spider under glass (for the rich), we all have Turkey Spider at least once a day. Many Americans have no clue how the Turkey Spider became so important in the pyramid of a balanced diet, so in this article I will attempt to explain its history and why it is so useful.
In the early 1870s, Francis Zefran became the first Turkey Spider breeder in North America. He started his famous Turkey Spider Ranch in Canton, OH. At the time, not much was known of the Turkey Spider's nutritional value, but the Turkey Spider Ranch changed all of that. Not only did Francis Zefran raise Turkey Spiders to sell their colorful plumes (a VERY lucrative business), he also set up the world's first research lab dedicated solely to the study of the Turkey Spider.
The lab found many interesting things. First, it was discovered that theTurkey Spider was actually semi-sentient. Second, the scientists found that the meat of the Turkey Spider was high in protein, vitamin A, vitamin B, and calcium, while low in fat, cholestorol, and sodium. Never before had such a nutritious meal been had without supplement or fortification. The scientists of the lab recommended immediately that the Turkey Spider become a part of every American's daily diet.
When the news of the Turkey Spider's usefulness reached president Rutherford B. Hayes, he was absolutely ecstatic. You see, President Hayes owed a number of favors to Francis Zefran because as I said earlier, the Turkey Spider plume trade was an extremely lucrative business and Mr. Zefran was important in getting RBH elected through a number of monetary gifts. President Hayes immediately asked Congress to pass what we all know today as the Hayes/Zefran Turkey Spider Consumption Act.
The act did a number of things to make the Turkey Spider a daily meal, most important of which was the requirement that for every four people in a household, one Turkey Spider must consumed every day. Another thing the act did was create an artificial monopoly for Francis Zefran's Turkey Spider Industries. The act stated that the only supplier of Turkey Spider meat in the US would be PBI. As one would imagine, this quickly made Francis Zefran into the richest man in the world. He was soon a multi-billionaire (quadrillionaire with today's inflation). Never before had a single man seen such wealth.
Many challenges were made to the Hayes/Zefran Turkey Spider Consumption Act, and several even made it the Supreme Court. It was argued that the act was unconstitutional and went against liberty itself, but once the detractors tasted delicious Turkey Spider meat for the first time, they immediately dropped their cases and followed the law to the letter. We all know today that Turkey Spider is the most delicious meat man has ever known, but at that time, the only meats people ate were pork and beef.
In the early 1970s, though, challenges to the act began again. Many argued that the monopoly given to Turkey Spider Industries by the act was in all ways unamerican. The Supreme Court finally agreed, and in 1974, Section II of the act was struck down. This in effect opened the market to competition for all.
Today, Turkey Spider Industries is almost no more. Today we have the market leader Turkey Spider Meat International facing against Penissoft, a recent startup. Where will the future lead the Turkey Spider market? Only time will tell us, but one thing is certain: Turkey Spiders are here to stay!
I'm not American, but I hate to see any people have to live with such a project looming over them. The potential for abuse is simply too great. Here's to TIA dying and staying dead.
In any case, it's nice to see that American policy makers don't have their heads completely up their asses. It's just too bad we can't say that about more nations' leaders. It gets to the point where an only mildly retarded government starts looking pretty good.
I'd like to go one day without hearing someone use 911 to justify some sort of crazy bullshit that never would be allowed otherwise.
"I'm sorry, but since 911 we just can't play by the same rules, therefore I'm going to have to rape your mom. If you don't let me you're un-American and the terrorists will win. You DO NOT want to go to guantanamo, do you? Good. Get the rope, please"
comeoff it. Meanwhile, anyone who dares question our response to 911 or any of these decisions "justified" by 911 is "disgracing the memories of the victims and insulting their families and all patriots of america"
how nice, you have it both ways.
well, in tribute to the popular drinking/card game:
BULLSHIT!
10 lines of truth
1. Flight 93 was shot down by US fighters- justifiably so.
2. Iraq was and still is only about oil.
3. TIA is about spying on Americans.
4. The Partiot act is unconstitutional.
5. The DMCA is an overreaching easily manipulated bad law stifling innovation and driving technology out of America.
6. Trickle down sucks if you aren't at the top.
7. "Support the troops" does not mean cheer as they go to die and kill while simultaneously reducing their benefits.
8. Israel isn't always right. Sometimes 2 wrongs make 2 wrongs.
9. Despite listing these truths, I am not a terrorist.
10. Fox is biased.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
How, exactly, do you know 9/11 will only work once, and why make it a 9/11 scenario.
Why hijack a plane if you can buy one.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Anyone remember when the Bush administration planned for a media disinformation agency ? It was around the time USA was attacking Afghanistan and it caused such a uproar that it was decided that it wouldn't be done ..
Well, guess what ... The Propaganda disinformation program is alive and kicking ...
What ?? You don't want to belive that Uncle Sam is doing such a thing ?? Then take a look at FAIR
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
He showed utter class by stepping aside for the dead guy's widow.
My God, you're angry!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I've heard tell that three letter agencies often get around the law by hiring contractors to do jobs outside of the U.S. Indian reservations
You're thinking of the CIA. Not that CIA, but the Casino Information Awareness program.
was how many Republican serial adulters were involved in that little coup attempt. Newt, you listening Newt? Bob Barr, you there? Dan Burton, where are you? Henry Hyde, you show yourself! Robert Livingston, are you paying attention?
Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Sufficient scared populace + sufficiently self-righteous government = paranoid delusions coming true.
Consider the last time the world looked so threatening to the US government: after WW2. The eastern European countries had fallen, communism was on the advance in several continents. As a result, our government mounted a series of extremely dumb cloak-and-dagger operations, from experimenting with the use of LSD as a "truth serum" on unwitting subjects, to overthrowing a democratically elected government in Iran. In retrospect, these things look pretty damned stupid. It may be too hard to teach people that "Desperate times warrant desperate measures" doesn't mean that any measure no matter how ineffective or stupid is justified by sufficiently intense fear.
The US hasn't quite reached the same level of panic post 9/11 as it did in the 50s. That said, we've still moved pretty far in the red-scare direction. Hopefully, enough people retain their post-Vietnam skepticism to question the benevolence and wisdom of our government's actions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The parent post is too close to historical reality to be that funny.
I'm sure Oracle has such a hard-on about getting a peice of this project...i'd bet they'd spend $169e6 just to lobby it into place since they know they get paid for all the upkeep. The cost of which i'm sure will grow as certainly as the entropy of the universe. And 90% of brainless in the country will be so gratefull that we can be free from terrorism in the digital age.
>Totalitarian Information Awareness!
TIA: TIA: It Ain't Total Information Awareness!
(Under the Senate bill, would that make funding illegal, mandatory, or both?)
TIA?
Tits Included with Ass?
surely we can find money for that!!!!!!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Actually, TIA would prove to be very useful in addressing inner city problems. The gov't could keep a watch on things so as to prevent some serious shit from happening again.
Oh, and to trump your little anecdote, I'll bring up the Cuban coast guardsmen who piloted their ship directly into a resort at Key West. The men were armed, as was the ship. They docked and walked around (armed) trying to find someone to defect to. Here's a link in case you've forgotten.
Counter Terrorisim Information Awarenes with Government Information Awareness here
This is just smoke and mirrors to put eveyrone back to sleep. You can bet your ass it's going ahead full tilt.
There is no way in hell Big Brother is going to let slip an opportunity to squeeze Winstons' neck ever and ever tighter until he chokes all the will from him..
Remember, ignorance is bliss.
INGSOC...
It's amusing how people criticized the FBI and CIA after 9/11 for not sharing information and not properly processing information. How soon people forget.
may be dead, but I can still rejoice at all the funding for T & A.
Wow, I just had a Pratchett flashback:
"It's the poorly spelled note of the Banshee"
sukotto
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Interesting how people defend p2p networks despite the fact that they have been abused, but strike down TIA before it has even gotten started, assuming it will be abused. God forbid someone put information in their possesion into a database and try to correlate it.
Vote for Pedro
First off, the point of this project was to mine lots of private sector data, local and state government data, federal government data, etc. This isn't something anybody can easily do secretly. Come on all you /.-reading DBAs out there -- are the feds going to secretly mine your data? Are the black ops going to hack in and load your data into their secret supercomputer -- and then update it daily? I don't think so. Under TIA, the feds would have access through the front door to state and local DBs, credit card and bank info, and more and more. Without TIA, anything they build secretly will have access to far less data, and will be much, much less powerful. In fact, without access to all of that data, the original point ("Total" information) is pretty much wrecked.
Secondly, there's a growing consensus in Congress that TIA goes too far. When they guys who gave us the Patriot Act can agree that a program goes too far in terms of infringing civil liberties, that's really saying something. Let's all relax for 30 seconds here and be grateful that Congress is drawing a line in the sand -- yes, yes, way to late, but still they are putting the administration on notice that it doesn't get absolutely everything it wants, and that's a major change in the momentum of this debate.
With all of that said, "All but dead" is overstating things a bit -- this is a line in a Senate bill that hasn't made it through the horse-trading in conference yet, so anything could still happen. I wouldn't say "All but dead" until it has the president's signature.
It's been 29 years since Reagan announced the War On (Some) Drugs. In the meantime, millions of individuals involved in feeding America's rather large appetite have been absorbed into the world's largest prison/labor system. Many of these people have avoided prison by committing suicide, and many drug prisoners have died of AIDS (prison rape). Billions of dollars in assets have been siezed by police agencies with the result of militarization of police agencies of all sizes. Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent each year to ostensibly keep drugs out of America. And yet, drug use and drug availability are nearly unchanged after all this time. In other words, in spite of a very large, high-profile War On (Some) Drugs, the level of drug use in this country has not decreased.
What happened? Didn't we remove millions of drug dealers from general circulation? Didn't we pass enough Draconian laws to scare remaining drug dealers out of the business and steer aspiring drug dealers into other professions? Didn't we spend millions of dollars on an ad campaign designed to convince the average American that the horrible 9/11 attacks were paid for by drugs? Just how do drugs manage to keep flowing into this country? Somebody must be bringing them in, and not getting caught.
Additionally, we all know from experience that John Poindexter doesn't have any moral qualms with the selling of guns and/or drugs to finance extra-legal activity. Ergo, the TIA could (and likely will) fund itself by selling drugs. Civil Liberties activists will congratulate themselves for defeating the TIA as it goes underground and compiles information on YOU, using money from every bag you buy.
New bumpersticker idea: De-fund the TIA: Grow Your Own Drugs!
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
If work on Terrorism 1984 laws increase as this decreases I'd sayd we're in trouble.
A blog I run for the wealth
Guess they'll be passing memos around like this:
Name: John O. Goatse aka Goatse Jones aka Goatse C. Xavier.
Address: Unknown.
Information: Seems to be harvesting data off the N.Y. Times pertaining to IP property laws and computer viruses.
Suspected threat: May be planning large scale destruction of intellectual property.
Suggested actions: Nationwide "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?" billboard and TV campaign using the only photograph we have thus far obtained(attached).
Don't be naive, I'm pretty sure that our Prez got congress to give him 75 Billion dollars to fight this war on terror and that was just for the first month of the Iraq war! And to add to that it will be overseen by the Army's CFO Thomas White, who was hand picked out of the Enron Debacle. We may never figure out where all this money is|was spent. There is plenty of money left over to direct some of it to TIA on the down-lo. Just my two cents
They're running the show. When things go wrong, they're responsible.
I realize that's a very un-Republican attitude ("The CIA should have stopped me from lying."), but that's the way it is.
For a moment, I thought it said "...John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer zombie spies..."
It must have been those subsersive European mind-control rays creeping into my head. Better get more aluminum foil.
I thought they stopped working on the Atari 2600's Television Interface Adapter a long time ago.
You call that dead? For a government office maybe, but give me $169 M, I'd higher only out of work IT geeks, a couple thousand used Dell in an abandoned wharehouse and setup a Linux/BSD BeoWOLF that could tell me what you had for breakfast...before you have it.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I hope they get help to reduce the risk factors and avoid future TIAs. Lifestyle changes may be required.
o rd ers/tia_doc.htm
More information about Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIA) is availabe from the National Institutes of Health.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/dis
"TIAs are often warning signs that a person is at risk for a more serious and debilitating stroke. About one-third of those who have a TIA will have an acute stroke some time in the future. Many strokes can be prevented by heeding the warning signs of TIAs and treating underlying risk factors."
I think not. Sure I misspelled paranoia (typo actually), but that don't make me undeducated, do it!? NO! Speeling is fer the we4k.
-pyrrho
Don't diss the Partiot Act. The Partiot act, or Party-Idiot act will be the first act of Bill and Ted's regime, and from what I understand, it will be excellent.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Call me naive, but I see the system working here. The executive branch attempted to overstep its powers, and Congress stepped in and put a stop to it. Certainly we've experienced a shocking erosion of our civil liberties in the last couple of years. Nevertheless, this news gave me a nice glow Sigs are overrated.
How many schools could that support?
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
Police get knocked. Hospitals, hospices, and (most especially) medical researchers get knocked. Hell, I've even been knocked as a firefighter.
And that's just at the lower levels of public notice. When you get to government leaders, There's no two ways about it. EVERYBODY has something to say about you, usually for ill. It's no fluke that most well-known leaders only get one shot at the job. Bit by bit, most of the voters are alienated in some way or another.
(I remember seeing a pair of articles a while back, one claimed Bush had weakened an anti-tobacco treaty, the other claimed he strengthened it.)
What's this Submit thingy do?
Chances are, the information they will sell is the information necessary to win presidential elections.
It's been done before.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia describes the Praetorian Guard "a special force of bodyguards used by Roman emperors."
It goes on to say, "The special position of the Praetorians made them become a power of its own in the Roman state, and its prefect, praefectus praetorio, was soon one of the more powerful men in this society. The emperors tried to flatter and control the praetorians, with the resulting coup d'états and rapid imperial succession. The praetorians thus came to destabilize the Roman state, contrary to their purpose."
"In 193, the praetorians even arranged an auction for the throne, an auction won by Didius Julianus. "
Welcome to the Imperatives of Empire.
...you couldn't be dead and run for office.
Ashcroft let Carnahan win (in other words, didn't chellenge his name on the ballot) so the Governor of Oklahoma could appoint his widow to fill the term. Being a Democrat, the first thing *she* did was turn on Ashcroft and dump on him from a height when he was being proposed for AG.
Class act, those Democrats.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The rest of your post was pure venom.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
As Oscar Wilde would have it, of course we're all living in the gutter. Some of us, however, are looking at the stars.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
For all those who decry the inefficiency and redundancy in government, with many, many eyes looking over the same piece of paper, you've just seen WHY it's a good thing.
All hail redundant legislative bodies, wherever they may lie!
Ever heard of a "filibuster"?
As to your other bit, "The CIA should have stopped me from lying." Come on! What's a lie? It's when you make a statement you know to be false. Like when the Rapist-in-Chief said he'd not had sex with that woman, Ms Lewinsky.
Citing information from British Intelligence that later turns out to be dodgy is not a lie. Bad judgment, maybe, but not a lie.
Of course, this doesn't really matter to the hate-filled Democratic Left. They're full of rage that their guy turned out to be such a lying loser scumbag and they want all Republicans, regardless of reality, to be tarred the same way.
Poor sods. I pity them. If they have their way we'll all end up dead or in Gulags. If they fail to have their way, they die losers with no hope.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Who do you pay attention to? Some szchlub on the other side of the contintent, or your boss, co-workers, and immediate acquaintences?
Come on!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Are you wishing murder on the AG of the USA? That is sick! Apart from anything else, he's an actual human being. Try swimming with concrete shoes yourself before wishing it on someone else.
As for the rest, listen, this is America, the country of competing interests. Ashcroft is going to push as hard as he can to get his way, and otehr interests will push back against him.
By the way, could you give me a definition of "fascist" that doesn't include something like "my favorite epithet to hurl at Republicans"? If you do a good job, you'll probably realize that "fascist" (more closely, it's kissing cousin "corporatist") is a good description of the core of the EU.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Key members of the White House "Praetorian Guard" were in on the JFK assassination. Some things never change ....
-kgj
I know Fincen is in operation with little control. There were some other databases lurking in legislation but I've not followed them recently.
Look for these to get glued together at some point.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
...given some moments ago, about a Cuban vessel that docked in Florida without let, nor hinderance, from representatives of the government of the United States.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
... are needed to protect the citizens.
This kind of thing is inevitable with the current focus on terrorism and the ease of data collection and transfer.
The DoD is currently offloading sensitive military actions to private companies -- why not just pay a private company to do it?
I am sure that any company (Double-click, etc.) will be happy to provide the same intelligence services to the government that it happily provides to other companies. Customer enhancement is only one step away from terrorism surveillance -- same data, different purpose.
So what we really need are some stronger checks and balances on both the government and companies -- for example,
* No sharing of data between entities without permission of the "data owner" -- (the person the data refers to)
* Quarterly reports to data owners of how their data is being used or transferred.
Otherwise you better believe the government (as well as corporations) are going to be looking at your phone records, bank statements, credit card records, Safeway cards.
Right now, your bank is permitted to sell your bank records unless you send them a letter asking them to stop. How many of you Slashdot readers have sent this letter?
It is important we put this into place because it wont be TIA but Halliburton (the company Dick Cheney used to be the CEO of) or Bechtel looking into your records. Are you feeling any safer?
Imagine the value of a centralized database that gathers together just public information about people, let alone private. Basically, it would become an automated mini-private eye service, which could mined for all sorts of useful information.
The companies are called Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion and have been operating private sector and government intellegence gathering for over 20 years.
That's just it. For the most part, they can't do things like this because spending is allocated by Congress.
What do you think was going on during Iran-Contra? After congress outlawed the funding of US backed terrorism, the CIA continued thier operations using money from serveral sources, including private donations and selling cocaine
No agency would attempt to piss off Congress like that.
See the same links in reference to this statement.
Read, L
...the path to fascism is along the path Hitler advocated and France and Germany are currently taking.
Your wordplay shows you as either a) a puerile asshole, or b) the President of [France|Germany]
In case of (b), I'm sorry that Berlusconi has made Tuscany so inhospitable to yout Jesus-booted ex-SS, ex-CRS friends.
Oh, and BTW, why post as an AC, yoo miserable AC?!?!?!???
668: Neighbour of the Beast
"The funding? Yeah... we... um... we spent it on a hammer! Oh yeah, and some... toilet seats! Yeah!"
~ Leilah
It's nice to see Poindexter not getting his way all the time.
Does Bush veto anything? I haven't been keeping track recently, but I had the impression based on his first year or two that Bush automatically signs almost anything Congress puts in front of him.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Considering that the Republicans blue slip'd and procedurally blocked Clinton's nominees, so that in the end the Senate approved only 61% of President Clinton's appellate court nominees, compared with 87% of those nominated by President Reagan. In 1999-2000, 19 out of 32 Clinton appeals court nominees -- roughly 60% -- were blocked from receiving a vote.
Of course, literally the exact same Republicans who blocked so many of Clinton's nominees are now furious that the exact same weapons are being used against them. Go figure.
Oh, and I'll restate: Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House. Nothing passes without their active involvement. Everything bad that happens is directly, explicitly and ONLY their fault. I realize this interferes with their desperate "We're the underdog" ethos. Tough.
After all, by their own admission, they can't account for one trillion dollars. I'm sure there are plenty of accounting tricks that will allow some slush funding of "TIA-like" activity.
This is horrible!! This will send the economy even further downward! How will the cities survive?? How will Washington survive?
...
..... .. oh , wait, T I A ?
I certainly hope that the adult industry protests these actions!
nevermind..
John Poindexter do something illegal! Or against a direct act of Congress (and the law) just so he and his cronies can get his way!
Never!
Oh, wait, he did get convicted of 5 counts of felony just to have them reversed on a technicality by a Republican appointed judge.
At least people now give a shit alas for the people of Nicaragua good ole' Poiny never payed for his crimes against them or the rest of us. Hopefully Bezelbub has a spot reserved for him
Don't ya just hate it when a little thing like public opinion buggers your plans for world domination?
Tell me you're not that naive. Until 1997, we didn't even know the how much was being spent on inteligence. It took a FOIA lawsuit by the Federation of American Scientists to get the CIA to release the "black budget" figure. The CIA then announced the figure for 1997 - $26.6 billion (yes, billion with a "b.") The FAS then forced the release of the 1998 aggregate intelligence figure - $26.7 billion.
Anybody who knows anything about government budgeting will know this figure is a lie. Most federal programs get an automatic 10% annual budget increase. Any increase of less than 10% is called a "cut" (remember the mid-90s Democrat Goebbels-worthy "Medicare cuts" campaign? Same thing.) Had the CIA's budget only increased by $0.1 billion, we would have heard a hue and cry about the intelligence budget being "cut."
The point is, they're lying about the amount of the budget even when a court ordered its release. Having been given essentially a blank check, who says they won't (or haven't) implemented TIA already via the "black budget"?
This will make my Network+ cert worth even less!