TIA Roundup

Articles on Total Information Awareness from around the media.  This entry may be updated throughout the day.

Embracing Big Brother - William Raspberry:

[...] Too much of what the government is getting in this new dispensation is stuff that Attorney General John Ashcroft and others wanted long before Sept. 11, 2001 -- for instance the right of the FBI to get a warrant to search your home, even in your absence, go through your things and download the contents of your computer.

Congress twice denied the request for such authority. Now it has granted it. The war on terror, you know.

But as President Bush himself told us, the war on terror is a long-term affair, with no end in sight. What's to keep the same thing from being true of the recently granted "exceptions" to our personal liberties? And why do we seem not to care?

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Who's Watching the Watchers - Derrick Z. Jackson:

[...] The fact that Poindexter has already admitted keeping knowledge of illegal activities from the president should automatically disqualify him from having anything to do with the privacy of Americans. The fact that the White House cannot talk straight about his appointment should make Americans demand that the project be scrapped until secrecy becomes an open debate.

Last week a reporter asked White House deputy spokesman Scott McClellan if President Bush public ly supports Poindexter's program. All McClellan said was: ''I've seen the reports, but I think you need to talk to the Pentagon. That is a question related to something that the Pentagon may be looking at, so I would refer you to the Pentagon.''

The obfuscation so well associated with Poindexter has begun. With him in charge of Total Information Awareness, you can be sure you will be the last to know if the government is breaking the law.

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Uncle Sam and Big Brother - Miro Cernetig:

Since the 1970s, the United States has created dozens of laws aimed at protecting citizens from spying by government agencies. Congressional committees also have a tradition of overseeing the operations of the government's spy apparatus, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, although often in secret. As well, U.S. law has generally made it necessary for the government to get court orders to see bank records or listen in on communications, laws that may apply to data mining.

Since Sept. 11, however, the White House has pushed through the Homeland Security and U.S. Patriot acts, sweeping laws that are challenging those privacy protections. For example, a U.S. court ruled this month that under the Patriot Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can now work in concert with the CIA and other agencies, making it easier to get wiretaps.

"As of today, the Attorney-General can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails and conduct secret searches of Americans' homes and offices," ACLU spokeswoman Ann Beeson declared after the ruling. It is unclear whether there will be an appeal.