TIA Update

A report in Wired Magazine notes that the Total Information Awareness website has begun shrinking lately.  Biographies of Admiral Poindexter and others involved in the project have been removed, as has the Information Awareness Office's "all-seeing eye" logo. 

Also changed is the graphic overview of how the project is intended to work.  Both graphics are a bit on the indecipherable side, but the new one seems to have been designed to stress the idea of legal protections in regards to who can access the system's data.

This is the original graphic:

This is the new graphic:

Of course, what's important is what hasn't changed.  They're tried to make the site look less intimidating, and they're tried to offer reassurance (through their graphics, at least) that access will be restricted by law.  What they haven't tried to do is make any kind of a fundamental change to the program itself, to create greater respect for the citizenry's right to privacy.  The basic plan is still the same - gather as much public and private information as possible on everyone, shuttle it through various "algorhythms" and see who deserves to be considered a possible suspect.  It may look less intimidating, but it's still capable of significant Constitutional mayhem.

[Side note: In an interesting parallel, TIA looks to be a kind of "pre-emptive" law enforcement - where people can be investigated without having actually committed anything resembling a crime - to go along with Bush's ideal of a "pre-emptive" war - where we can attack a country without the country having actually having done something wrong.  Suspicion of potential future wrongdoing becomes reason enough to take action.]