uexpress.com
by Ted Rall

12/28/05

Civil libertarians relaxed when, in September 2003, Republicans bowed to public outcry and cancelled Total Information Awareness. TIA was a covert 'data mining' operation run out of the Pentagon by creepy Iran-Contra figure John Poindexter. Bush Administration marketing mavens had tried to dress up the sinister 'dataveillance' spook squad -- first by changing TIA to Terrorism Information Awareness, then to the Information Awareness Office -- to no avail. 'But,' wondered the Electronic Frontier Foundation watchdog group a month after Congress cut its funding, 'is TIA truly dead?' At the time I bet 'no.' Once a regime has revealed a predilection for spying on its own people, the histories of East Germany and Richard Nixon teach us, they never quit voluntarily...

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/?uc_full_date=20051227


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp