posted 12-13-2002 05:56 PM            

The official seal of the Pentagon's new Total Information Awareness
Office (TIA) bears a spooky eye above a pyramid – you know the one,
it's on the back of the one-dollar bill – peering at the globe. The
fact that the TIA was quietly funded under the auspices of the bill
creating the new Department of Homeland Security suggests that its
mission is a vital part of the war on terrorism. But Europe and Asia,
the two main continents of the eastern hemisphere, which appear on
the TIA logo, are not in fact its principal targets. You are.

Rear Admiral John Poindexter, the scandal-scarred Iran-Contra figure
who heads the $62.9 million "data mining" operation for the Defense
Department, says that the TIA's mission is "to detect, classify and
identify foreign terrorists – and decipher their plans – and thereby
enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and
defeat terrorist acts." Sounds like a magnificent idea. So why do
such unusual allies as the American Civil Liberties Union, The New
York Times, William Safire and Republican senator Charles Grassley
say it's dangerous?

According to the TIA's website, Poindexter's new office will
"develop architectures for a large-scale counter-terrorism database,
for system elements associated with database population, and for
integrating algorithms and mixed-initiative analytical tools ...
invent new algorithms for mining, combining, and [refining] ...
revolutionary new models, algorithms, methods, tools, and techniques
for analyzing and correlating information in the database to derive
actionable intelligence."

In English: Total Information Awareness will use sophisticated
computer-modeling programs to search every database they can get
their hands on. They'll scan credit card receipts, bank statements,
ATM purchases, Web "cookies," school transcripts, medical files,
property deeds, magazine subscriptions, airline manifests, addresses
– even veterinary records. The TIA believes that knowing if and when
Fluffy got spayed – and whether your son stopped torturing Fluffy
after you put him on Ritalin – will help the military stop terrorists
before they strike.

Most of this raw data is already available to businesses trying to
market their products. The TIA represents the first full-scale
attempt by a government agency – the Department of Defense – to
collect and analyze that information. "There has obviously been a
growing problem within the private sector over collection of
information for targeted marketing," says David Sobel, general
counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "What's
different now is the government is putting major resources into
getting access to privately collected data."

Critics are understandably anxious that the TIA is merely the Bush
Administration's latest effort to emulate the most unsavory aspects
of Soviet society. "If the Pentagon has its way, every American –
from the Nebraskan farmer to the Wall Street banker – will find
themselves under the accusatory cyber-state of an all-powerful
national security apparatus," warns Laura Murphy of the ACLU.

Is Poindexter more interested in digging up dirt on Bush's political
foes than fighting Islamist terrorism? Should we believe him when he
says that he respects the Fourth Amendment? Short of running a TIA
profile on the man, there's no way to know whether he's hoping to
turn the United States into a police state. For the sake of argument,
let's assume that the TIA plans to respect our privacy rights and
that it won't yield to the temptation to use its findings to smear
political opponents.

Even if Poindexter and his domestic spying operation means well –
and that's a big if – the TIA is a classic case of fighting your last
battle all over again.

Like Attorney General John Ashcroft's Operation TIPS (Terrorism
Information Prevention System) – the Orwellian Justice Department
program that asks cable installers, postal workers and meter readers
to turn in their customers if they see any suspicious behavior – the
TIA assumes that the next big attack will be committed by members of
Arab "sleeper cells" living in the United States. Why do we assume
this? Because that is what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

Presuming there will be an exact replay of Sept. 11 has led to long
security lines at airports and no screenings whatsoever at train
stations and bus depots. Which targets would you go after if you were
a terrorist?

As proven by their ability to elude arrest, Osama bin Laden and his
allies are no fools. As Al Qaeda operatives plot their next attack
against the United States, they will exploit the weaknesses we aren't
aware of or have chosen to ignore. Another plane hijacking is
unlikely, at least for the foreseeable future. So are strikes carried
out by illegal-immigrant operatives with a fondness for strip joints
living in the United States. Terrorists are opportunists, not serial
killers predictably utilizing identical methods for each act.

Whatever you least expect: expect.

Since most of the data the TIA analyzes relates to loyal American
citizens, Total Information Awareness creates the potential for abuse
of governmental power on an unprecedented scale. Because it won't
track the most likely future terrorists – people who live in, for
example, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – it's a waste of money
that furthers the illusion that our government is protecting us.

Since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has asked us to trade our precious
freedoms for a little security. The TIA forces Americans to sacrifice
privacy for nothing.

posted 12-13-2002 06:18 PM            

George W. Bush - Warlord
A Presidential Impostor Turns Political Assassin
12-11-02

NEW YORK--First he appointed himself President. Now George W. Bush has declared himself God.

As Americans begin their third year of Supreme Court-ordered political occupation, Bush has just signed an impressive new executive order. You may be surprised to learn that it grants him the right to order your execution. No judge, jury or lawyer. No chance to prove your innocence. One stroke of Bush's pen, and bang--you're dead.

Not even your American citizenship, according to Bush, will save your life if and when he decides to kill you. The only reason you're reading this right now--instead of meeting the Entity Formerly Known as God--is that neither Bush nor one of his "high-level officials" has yet signed a piece of paper declaring you an "enemy combatant." Once they do the paperwork, Administration officials assert, they have the right to murder you.

Bush's secret assassination directive surfaced on Dec. 3, when reporters asked about the Nov. 3 Central Intelligence Agency rub-out of alleged Al Qaeda operatives riding in a car in Yemen. Langley fired a Hellfire missile from a remote-controlled Predator drone into the vehicle, blowing up several men. The CIA later discovered that an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, had inadvertently been killed in the inferno.

"No constitutional questions are raised here," asserted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, stretching credulity more than usual. Officials claim that a loophole in Bush's order authorizing the CIA to "covertly attack Al Qaeda all over the world" validates Derwish's murder. Since this sneaky directive makes exception neither for Americans nor American soil, these guys say, you and I have no more rights than the now-deceased, not-presumed-innocent Kamal Derwish.

Your life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are now officially subject to George W. Bush's personal judgement--or whim.

The war on terrorism isn't a war, it's a cheesy public service announcement, like the "war on poverty" and the "war on drugs." Like those old un-won campaigns, it involves no declaration of war, no defined enemy, no front. And like them it will gradually fade into embarrassing irrelevance. "Can you believe it?" future citizens will marvel. "People actually took this stuff seriously!" In the meantime, America's Gang of Four--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft--have brilliantly exploited the nebulousness of nullity. Having no enemy means that anyone can be declared the enemy. Having no battleground means that the battleground is anywhere and everywhere. "The Bush Administration and Al Qaeda together have defined the entire world as a battlefield," writes the Associated Press' John J. Lumpkin.

While the CIA has targeted U.S. citizens in the past, those killings were officially sanctioned only when the person in question was considered an immediate threat to American lives. Scott L. Silliman, director of the Duke University Center on Law, Ethics and National Security asks: "Could you put a Hellfire missile into a car in Washington, D.C. under the same theory? The answer is yes, you could."

Never mind that anyone driving on the Beltway could just as easily be pulled over by the cops. Like the medieval lords who wielded the right of life and death over their subjects, our Texan warlord now claims the droit du seigneur over the American people.

Under his legalized assassination mandate, Bush could theoretically declare the 2004 Democratic nominee an "enemy combatant," Hellfire his campaign bus and coast to reelection unopposed. It would be a heck of a lot easier than preparing for debates.

Granted, it's unlikely that CIA missiles will begin raining down on Berkeley or other liberal burgs anytime soon. Killing Muslims, even those with U.S. citizenship, is one thing; offing "ordinary" Americans is another. As has been the case with previous Bushie infringements on fundamental civil rights--electronic eavesdropping, jailing people without trial or a visit by a lawyer--most citizens believe themselves safe simply by virtue of their not being terrorists.

They may be right. They might be wrong. It's all in the hands of the executioner-in-chief now.

(Ted Rall is editor of "Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists," an anthology of cartoons, ephemera and interviews with 21 of America's best editorial cartoonists. Ordering and review-copy information are available at nbmpub.com.)

posted 12-13-2002 06:34 PM            

It's a FREAKING outrage!!!!!!!

"-----Since most of the data the TIA analyzes relates to loyal American
citizens, Total Information Awareness creates the potential for abuse
of governmental power on an unprecedented scale.------"

They've said it...they are going after YOU..not Osama Bin Laden .

Don't let the TIA sacre you.

GET LOUDER AND LOUDER AND LOUDER!!!!!