roya.jakoby on Tue, 12 Nov 2002 19:48:43 +0100 (CET) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
<nettime> Total Information Awareness |
It was reported that Admiral John M. Poindexter, who was convicted in the Iran-Contra affair in 1990 but later acquitted on a technicality, joined the Bush Administration earlier this year as head of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Poindexter is in charge of a new system called Total Information Awareness, which would permit the military to spy on the civilian population of the United States without search warrants by scanning personal information such as email, credit-card statements, banking and medical records, and travel documents for patterns that suggest criminal or terrorist activities. Deployment of the surveillance technology would require new legislation, since the military traditionally has not been allowed to spy on ordinary American citizens. "This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa, and the agency is the FBI. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public." (as read in HARPER'S WEEKLY Newsletter, November 12, 2002) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Harper's Magazine http://www.harpers.org # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net