Posted 2/11/2006 04:40:00 PM by Douglas

Even more readings about the beast:

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe -- including the United States.

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.

In order to deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.

What could possibly go wrong?

''A lot of my colleagues are uncomfortable about this and worry about the potential uses that this technology might be put, if not by this administration then by a future one,'' said Barbara Simon, a computer scientist who is past president of the Association of Computing Machinery. ''Once you've got it in place you can't control it.''

Well, duh. And you just gotta love the logo.

From the book:

"One of the remarkable things about ideas is that once you surface an idea and it is a good idea, in the long term there is very little that can be done to stop it," Poindexter said confidently. "So I am convinced that research and development will continue, one way or another."

Scary shit, and the genie isn't going to get back in the bottle. Ever.