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Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7
(TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON, Capital Hill Blue, Jun 7, 2004)
...if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive (Arlington, Virginia), she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness Program, the "big brother" program Congress thought it killed. When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute. Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program's controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA's TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon - with administration approval - simply moved the program into a 'black bag' account," says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. "Black bag programs don't require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight." Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism. "Americans must trade some privacy for security," he says. "Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off."

[COMMENT] ****** ACTUALLY, Dougie, there does NOT have to be a trade-off of privacy for security. That's why there is a Bill of Rights, thought it is sorely battered and tattered at this point. No one should be in favor of trading real privacy for faux-security - especially to the current version of a government. Our privacy is all that we have left to protect us from Big Brother and I'd like to hold onto it for as long as I can. But, that's just this old Curmudgeon's opinion...*******

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 5:58 PM