<nettime> WPost on surveillance

[christian brutsch <brutsch {AT} gmx.net>]

geert wrote "Let's transform the new media buzz into something more 
interesting altogether - before others do it for us." how true, also 
because the become-minor-default may soon be more than a gateway to 
self-satisfactory protest. as seen in monday's wallstreet journal 
europe's page 1 coverage of bin ladens web operations in china - and 
today's washington post.
chris


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To view the entire article, go to 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40942-2002Nov11.html
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U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global 
computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials 
access to personal information in government and commercial databases 
around the world.

The Information Awareness Office, run by former national security 
adviser John M. Poindexter, aims to develop new technologies to sift 
through "ultra-large" data warehouses and networked computers in search 
of threatening patterns among everyday transactions, such as credit card 
purchases and travel reservations, according to interviews and documents.

Authorities already have access to a wealth of information about 
individual terrorists, but they typically have to obtain court approval 
  in the United States or make laborious diplomatic and intelligence 
efforts overseas. The system proposed by Poindexter and funded by the 
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at about $200 million 
a year, would be able to sweep up and analyze data in a much more 
systematic way. It would provide a more detailed look at data than the 
super-secret National Security Agency now has, the former Navy admiral said.

<snip>

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