Ah, yes, of course, the "P" word comes up.

Personally, the fact that this idea is the brainchild of John Poindexter is cause enough to be paranoid. This is a man who lied to Congress and (if you believe his story), lie to the President he was sworn to serve. Now we must take HIS word that he's only going to listen to terrorists?

The fact that it's called "Total Information Awareness" is scary enough. It's not the data they are telling us they will collect that's the concern -- it's the freedom they've just been given to collect ANY information about you, compile it in a large database that may of may not be secure to hackers and internal spies, and USE that data any way they see fit.

What is literally happening here is that the government is declaring every American to be a suspect. There is no probable cause anymore, no judicial oversight to ensure that you are reasonably likely of having committed a crime. In other words, we must live in fear of our government.

From a report by Fox News:
"When it's ready, Aldridge said individual privacy rights will be protected. But he could not explain how the data would be accessed. In some cases, specific warrants would give law enforcement agencies access, he said. But in other cases the database might flag suspicious activity absent a specific request or warrant, and that suspicious activity could well be relayed to law enforcement or intelligence agencies."

Now, what was I saying the other day about developing procedures to assign risks factors to individuals, and automatically flagging those individuals for survellience or interrogation?

I know you think of government as a big benevolent puppy that wouldn't do a thing to harm it's citizens, Doug, but history doesn't bear that impression out. Given power, government will use it. Given enough power, government will abuse it.

Illuminati conspiracy theorists must be doing cartwheels. The logo for the Information Awareness Office is an illuminated eye on top of a pyramid. Ha!

An ex of mine was the son of a prominent journalist during the Red Scare. Said journalist was one of the first men to do government exposes, and as such, was a suspected communists. My ex grew up under constant survellience by intelligence agencies. He used to joke about all of his pubescent telephone conversations being stored in an FBI basement on tape, and always wanted to know if the agents were routing for him or just bored when he was 15 and trying to convince a girl to sleep with him. Well, it was supposed to be a joke, but the man would hardly blink in public, let alone dance or sing or laugh -- habits earned from childhood.

Is that what you want your kids to remember from their childhood? That someone is watching them all the time?