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TIA Project to End

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the let-freedom-ring dept.

Marnhinn writes "MSNBC is reporting that the Terrorism Spying Project (also known as TIA) is dead. The government is cancelling most of the project and changing the rest to focus on people outside the United States." TIA had been on death's door for a while, but now it's finally official. Some of the programs will still be around, however, they will just be shifted over to different departments.

8 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. I'm not an American... by MaestroSartori · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and I don't think I'm hugely paranoid about evil government and so on, but I suspect most of the things that TIA was going to do are probably already going on in one form or another behind the scenes.

    Maybe the only good thing about formalising it would be that at least there'd be some sort of accountability...

    --
    Game dev and music blog
    1. Re:I'm not an American... by AlecC · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A legal loophole would allow lets say the US and UK to have an agreement whereby they say "you spy on mine and I'ill spy on yours and we'ill exchange the information"

      While, as you say, this might well be legal, the political/PR consequences if it got out would be enormous - far too much risk for the "other" govenrment to take. Look how much fuss there was when the Israelis were found to be collecting relatively samlla amounts of information about the US.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
    2. Re:I'm not an American... by KingJoshi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When there were rumors that the US has bugged rooms in the United Nations a little while back, I think ALL the diplomats reacted as though it was common practice. And not just from the United States either.

      And it's not just about US planting bugs all over China's premier's plane. It'd be foolish for leaders of ally nations to assume that just because you're an ally, that we won't try to get more info than you're telling us. And we'd be foolish not to expect the same.

      So, with that said, it'd make sense if the FBI/CIA or whomever contacted agencies in UK and said, would you happen to have info on this guy...

      --
      In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
  2. Whatever... by goldenfield · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So its 'officially' cancelled...I have a hard time believe that the government thought it was important/useful, and now everyone has agreed that we don't need it, and has moved on.

    So now there's no offical TIA project...that just means they can hide bits and pieces of it in other projects.

    If they want the data, they'll get it.

  3. Like the Office of Strategic Influence? by I+am+Jack's+username · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "And then there was the office of strategic influence. [...] I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have." - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2002-11-18, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2002/t11212002_ t1118sd2.html

  4. Spying by chrystoph · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think that the whole spying thing can be summed up with a poster the Security Officer at one of my Navy commands had on his wall.

    "Countries do not have friends, only interests."

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    As easy as herding cats!
  5. Re:Why, yes, it IS an aluminum foil hat. by rot26 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As hard as it may be to believe, Ashcroft has nothing to do with TIA or anything else in the Pentagon. TIA was Poindexter's baby and carried Rumsfeld's seal of approval, not Ashcroft's.

    And pry-thee which division of the Defense Department was going to use TIA had it been fully implemented and deployed?

    DARPA may be part of the Defense Department, but in this case they were essentially a contractor developing a product for use by Justice.

    --



    To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
  6. Re:Gotta give them credit by symbolic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DARPA's dreaded Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, formerly administered by convicted felon and Republican hero John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame...

    Very few articles about TIA seem to mention the fact that Poindexter is a person that cannot be trusted, or that he's associated with a political party that has pushed the notion of 'patriotism' onto a dangerous, rocky slope that has every American citizen under suspicion for possible terrorist activity. TIA will not provide any protection against terrorism, but if history is any indication, it will provide plenty of opportunity for abuse.