Farewell to Privacy

“By William Safire (often a very conservative columnist)
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3431791.html
Published Nov. 15, 2002 SAF15

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you -- passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance -- and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.

This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks.

Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua.

A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing.

This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.

Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight.

He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans.

When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president.

This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of the New York Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act.

Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia" -- "knowledge is power." Exactly: The government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

"We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured the Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.”

“Back to the top. Everybody needs to see this.”

“Bill O'Reilly has hired a non=partisan consultant to study this issue over the weekend, and promises a report next week.

”

“bad link

Bill O'Reilly”

“Just who the he11 is gonna sift through all the mountains of trivia, tripe, and BS to glean just one kernel of useful information?

They will be looking for certain key words which will tip them off, and then an analyst will sift through the keyed message or transaction to see whether it, in point of fact, has any bearing on a potential attack.

Otherwise, nobody on god's green earth if gonna be able to, much less give a rat's @ss, about TTers ordering things from Sierra Trading Post or exchanging jerky recipes.

Stikmon, however, might have some problems ...”

“Just to illustrate where things are at this very moment, go to Yahoo and type in stikmon. Without even opening a file, you will learn he has a dog names Kahtru and went on a hiking trip with Lizs.”

“Pathman: It will be interesting to see what O'Reilly says.

Geo: The thing is that with this data base available, people in government will be able to pull together all kinds of info on you. Government has misused personal information before, and Poindexter has misused government office to committ crimes and bypass the constitution in the past. He was convicted. The conviction got overturned because the prosecution couldn't prove that they weren't help by immunized testimony he gave to Congress.”

“I just got this in my email (AAPS is American Academy Of Physicians and Surgeons):

"HR 5710 gives the federal government new powers and increases federal
expenditures,
completely contradicting what members were told about the bill. Furthermore,
these new power grabs are being rushed through Congress without giving members
the ability to debate, or even properly study, this proposal. I must oppose
this bill and urge my colleagues to do the same."



---Rep. Ron Paul, M.D. AAPS member on the floor of the House
11/13/02

Read Entire Statement:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr111302.htm”

“And for those of you who don't know Ron Paul,he ain't no liberal democrat. He is a very conservative House member from Texas. From the bio on his web site:

He was an unwavering advocate of pro-life and pro-family values. Dr. Paul consistently voted to lower or abolish federal taxes, spending, and regulation, and used his House seat to actively promote the return of government to its proper constitutional levels.”

“The problem is when one becomes a "person of interest", Geo.

You and I both know that governmental power falls into the hands of mean spirited folks from time to time, from a bad cop to an IRS agent bent on some petty vengeance. What power will this give to government officials to misuse?

What value does it add?

Does the value outweigh the potiential problems?”

“Well its good to see the other side of the political spectrum is beginning to see that some in power have used the 9-11 tragedy as an excuse to introduce some pretty extreme and un-American measures.

BTW, I http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread.php?id=17380&age=999" target="_blank">posted about this already and http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread.php?id=17348&age=999" target="_blank">so did Phaedrus.

The http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40942-2002Nov11.html " target="_blank"> washingtonpost ran a story about this too:

U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
System Would Be Used to Hunt Terrorists

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page A04

A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world.

The Information Awareness Office, run by former national security adviser John M. Poindexter, aims to develop new technologies to sift through "ultra-large" data warehouses and networked computers in search of threatening patterns among everyday transactions, such as credit card purchases and travel reservations, according to interviews and documents.

Authorities already have access to a wealth of information about individual terrorists, but they typically have to obtain court approval in the United States or make laborious diplomatic and intelligence efforts overseas. The system proposed by Poindexter and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at about $200 million a year, would be able to sweep up and analyze data in a much more systematic way. It would provide a more detailed look at data than the super-secret National Security Agency now has, the former Navy admiral said.

"How are we going to find terrorists and preempt them, except by following their trail," said Poindexter, who brought the idea to the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and now is beginning to award contracts to high-technology vendors.

"The problem is much more complex, I believe, than we've faced before," he said. "It's how do we harness with technology the street smarts of people on the ground, on a global scale."

Although formidable foreign policy and privacy hurdles remain before any prototype becomes operational, the initiative shows how far the government has come in its willingness to use information technology and expanded surveillance authorities in the war on terrorism.

Poindexter said it will take years to realize his vision, but the office has already begun providing some technology to government agencies. For example, Poindexter recently agreed to help the FBI build its data-warehousing system. He's also spoken to the Transportation Security Administration about aiding its development of a massive passenger-profiling system.

In his first interview since he started the "information awareness" program, Poindexter, who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal more than a decade ago, said the systems under development would, among other things, help analysts search randomly for indications of travel to risky areas, suspicious e-mails, odd fund transfers and improbable medical activity, such as the treatments of anthrax sores. Much of the data would be collected through computer "appliances" -- some mixture of hardware and software -- that would, with permission of governments and businesses, enable intelligence agencies to routinely extract information.

Some specialists question whether the technology Poindexter envisions is even feasible, given the immense amount of data it would handle. Others question whether it is diplomatically possible, given the sensitivities about privacy around the world. But many agree, if implemented as planned, it probably would be the largest data-surveillance system ever built.

Paul Werbos, a computing and artificial-intelligence specialist at the National Science Foundation, doubted whether such "appliances" can be calibrated to adequately filter out details about innocent people that should not be in the hands of the government. "By definition, they're going to send highly sensitive, private personal data," he said. "How many innocent people are going to get falsely pinged? How many terrorists are going to slip through?"

Former senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, said there's no question about the need to use data more effectively. But he criticized the scope of Poindexter's program, saying it is "total overkill of intelligence" and a potentially "huge waste of money."

"There's an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one," Hart said when told about the program.

Poindexter said any operational system would include safeguards to govern the collection of information. He said rules built into the software would identify users, create an audit trail and govern the information that is available. But he added that his mission is to develop the technology, not the policy. It would be up to Congress and policymakers to debate the issue and establish the limits that would make the system politically acceptable.

"We can develop the best technology in the world and unless there is public acceptance and understanding of the necessity, it will never be implemented," he said. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy."

Getting the Defense Department job is something of a comeback for Poindexter. The Reagan administration national security adviser was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair, which involved the secret sale of arms to Iran in the mid-1980s and diversion of profits to help the contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the highest-ranking Regan administration official found guilty in the scandal. He was sentenced to six months in jail by a federal judge who called him "the decision-making head" of a scheme to deceive Congress. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in 1991, saying Poindexter's rights had been violated through the use of testimony he had given to Congress after being granted immunity.

In recent years, he has worked as a DARPA contractor at Syntek Technologies Inc., an Arlington consulting firm that helped develop technology to search through large amounts of data. Poindexter now has a corner office at a DARPA facility in Arlington. He still wears cuff links with the White House seal and a large ring from the Naval Academy, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1958.

As Poindexter views the plan, counterterrorism officials will use "transformational" technology to sift through almost unimaginably large amounts of data, something Poindexter calls "noise," to find a discernable "signal" indicating terrorist activity or planning. In addition to gathering data, the tools he is trying to develop would give analysts a way to visually represent what that information means. The system also would include the technology to identify people at a distance, based on known details about their faces and gaits.

He cited the recent sniper case as an example of something that would have benefited from such technology. The suspects' car, a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, was repeatedly seen by police near the shooting scenes. Had investigators been able to know that, Poindexter said, they might have detained the suspects sooner.

The office already has several substantial contracts in the works with technology vendors. They include Hicks & Associates Inc., a national security consultant in McLean; Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a management and technology consultant in McLean; and Ratheon Corp., a technology company that will provide search and data-mining tools. "Poindexter made the argument to the right players, so they asked him back into the government," said Mike McConnell, a vice president at Booz Allen and former director of the NSA.

The office already has an emblem that features a variation of the great seal of the United States: An eye looms over a pyramid and appears to scan the world. The motto reads: Scientia Est Potentia, or "knowledge is power."”

“Argh. sorry, Ped, you beat me to it, and I didn't read your post first.”

“And Violin is, as always, on top of the situation!

I'm writing a letter to my congressman.”

“From what little has been revealed, the government had plenty of intelligence prior to 9-11, they just didn’t act on it. How does giving them the right to snoop on anyone all the time make us any safer?”

“Exactly! Where are the processes for better evaluation of existing intelligence? How does this help?”

“They already have more information about you at their fingertips than you would feel comfortable knowing about. And no laws have been passed for that to have been made possible.

I certainly don't like the idea, but I'm not going to drive myself nuts worrying about it. Like I said, this is going to be a mountain range of data. The only possible way to find anything in it would be through keywords, and then somebody would have to sift through the stuff that came out from keyword searches.

The phone messages that pressaged the Sept. 11 attacks were not even discovered until too late.

We're ascribing more power to federal agencies than they have people power or capability to bring to bear on the issue.

Congress "in its infinite wisdom" has no idea what this bill will do positively or negatively. They have no idea what it will take to analyze the huge mountain range of data that would accumulate in short order.

Anything can be misused, true. But if it should be, the backlash would wipe out the Republican majority more quickly than you could say GOP loses.

Poindexter may be Poindexter, but Bush is neither completely stupid nor resigned to losing his bid for re-election.

Nixon had his enemies list, and that was an example of gross misuse of federal power. In the end his own inability to understand the limits of power or the constitutional division of power led to his downfall.

So we have courts, and we have Congress, and when push came to shove, the Constitution worked just perfectly.

Then again, the Kennedy assassination continues to be debated.”

“It’s not the random culling of the data that bothers me Geobeet. As a law-abiding citizen I don’t fear such things. BUT – what if small groups with access to the data decide to keep an eye on intellectuals or even people like you and I?”

“.....based on what you buy from Amazon.com

.....based on where you give to charity.


.....based on what clubs you belong to.....”

“"Just to illustrate where things are at this very moment, go to Yahoo and type in stikmon. Without even opening a file, you will learn he has a dog names Kahtru and went on a hiking trip with Lizs."
Geobeet
01:55:06 PM
11/15/02


i just typed in my login for this site on yahoo and 2 things came up with my name on them..something from backpacker.com and something from the Jackass thread from this site..


wtf?”

“As a law-abiding citizen, I DO fear such things. What happens when I make someone in power take notice of me due to radically different political beliefs?

What's to stop them from using this tool to look at ME?

We all have things we feel better knowing are private. What about your prescription for the cream to cure that Ummm, embarrassing rash that you got while at the "convention"? What about the subsciption you keep to Second Skin magazine? What about the stripper service for your friend's bachelor party that you charged to your credit card?

What if these things were to become public?

This is a dangerous precedent to set. The government might no be able to use all the information right now, but given another ten years, they will.”

“Remember J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthy!”

“as examples of information and power misused.”

“I am loathe to admit it, but I have to go with Phaedrus, Violin, Pedxing and all the other flaming commie pinko libs (J/K) on this one. The govt. is going too far. What will happen when our government holds all the power, knows every move of every citizen (subject?) and we no longer have the means to resist? Hell, they probbably already know who is a folder and who is a wadder...”

“You don't even have to have radically different beliefs. Read Solzhenitsyn for an insight into how a totalitarian society evolve and how everyone was culpable and collaborated with their own oppression.”

“evolved!”

“Violin, I'm going to agree with you just one to many times and find myself posting as Marvin Gardens or something.

This is the crux of the issue: What is the benefit for us giving up the rights to the privacy we have now?

What will we gain?”

“Too... durnit”

“...gotcha...”

“I agree.

But, heard on NPR that the FBI computer system is so old that they can only search using one word at a time. It will take awhile for them to get us. In the mean time prepare your defenses.”

“I can see us living in a society where only the technologically savvy get any right to privacy.

We could open a business for people who don't want to be spied on by the government, but we'd have to pay taxes, and that would be the end of that... Oh well.”

“Where's our arch-conservative crew to defend this outstanding piece of legislation?

It's all in the name of protecting US I tell ya!”

“The conservatives are all over this-against it.

The proposal isn't conservative or liberal, its more totalitarianism or something like that. Conservatives in general want less government intrusion.

Sean Hannity's radio show is running far against it.”

“Actually since those with most to hide would likely be adept at avoiding detection from such a system, its usefulness for the stated purpose is even more questionable.”

“Path: I guess we'll see how far it gets in a conservative controlled govt.”

“Yeah, I'm wondering where this is actually coming from...”

“I think its going to get shot down. I think its coming from control freaks.

I don't mind using the tools, but use supeonas and court orders based on reasonable cause.”

“Hey Phaedrus, if all this stuff is true, you could just write your letter to your congressman here on TT, and save the price of a stamp.

Seriously though, this is definitely something for everyone to keep an eye on.”

“"Path: I guess we'll see how far it gets in a conservative controlled govt."
roseymonster
04:16:18 PM
11/15/02

Rosey, pull your head out of your @ss! It won't get anywhere if you and I and everyone else rails against it.”

“Hey! Who turned out the lights?

Agreed, FG.”

“ahhh....

I knew it would show up here

Vote.com”

“See there? Conservatives and libs CAN play nice together when it counts. I think it really counts now...”

“One vote on vote.com sent my vote to President Bush, Senators Bingaman and Domenici, and Congresswoman Wilson.

I don't expect it to create the law, but I expect it to put them on notice that this issue is a hot one and they'd better pay attention.

LET THE PENTAGON TRACK THE INTERNET
USE, TRAVEL, PHONE AND BANK RECORDS OF CITIZENS AND FOREIGNERS?”

“Vote.com seems very slow tonight. Could it be overwhelmed?”

“F.G.-well said.”

“If this goes through, I am just waiting till they have a big sale on Mountain House food, and the computer flags all the TT'rs that stock up on it. The interrogation will start with something like "Why are you stocking up for months on dehydrated food? What are you expecting to happen in the U.S. that you would need to be this self sufficient?" It could happen!”

“Tango, darlin', it's up to you and me and everybody else to see to it that it doesn't get that far...”

“Start writin' letters, people!!! To your Senators, Congressmen and Dubya!”

“Pathman, I couldn't get either one of your links to work.”

“You can also get your reps email addresses and send an email to all with one letter on the foxnews political page. The box is on the right side of the page and looks like this:


Fox News Politics”

“November 16, 2002


Authors defend homeland bill's privacy provisions
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The authors of the homeland-security bill pending in Congress defended their legislation yesterday against spirited protests that it would enable the government to snoop on American citizens. They said the bill contains adequate provisions to protect privacy rights.

Sponsors of the legislation, which will be taken up in the Senate for final passage next week, said it contains specific provisions that the proposed department may not gather information in contravention of constitutional and statutory privacy protections.
"No other department in the United States government has a statutorily created privacy officer, as this Homeland Security agency would have," said Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "We created a stronger privacy officer than would exist anywhere else in government, with strong new powers to ensure that technologies are used to sustain and not to erode privacy protections."
Nevertheless, some critics were not convinced. Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican and a former U.S. attorney, said he still believes the bill, combined with fears of terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks, could lead to abuse.
"It may very well be technically correct that the homeland-security bill does not explicitly authorize such a move," he said. "My fear is that government has become so proactive in this regard that they will use some of the general language in this bill to accelerate the process under the guise of homeland security."
Richard Diamond, spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican and the chairman of the special committee that wrote the House version of the bill, and Miss Phillips said the bill has specific protections for privacy, including a privacy officer whose job will be to monitor the new department and make sure it doesn't intrude on privacy rights. The officer reports to Congress, which has final oversight.
Mr. Diamond said sponsorship of the legislation otherwise would have contradicted Mr. Armey's long record on privacy. "Mr. Armey has been praised by both people on the left and on the right for the privacy provisions in the homeland-security bill, and that includes groups like the [American Civil Liberties Union] and the incoming minority leader, [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi, on the House floor, congratulating Mr. Armey for these privacy provisions."
He noted that Mr. Armey was responsible for language in the bill eliminating Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), proposed by the Bush administration, that would have enlisted mail carriers, utility meter-readers and others with access to private homes to report suspicious activities of their neighbors and clients. He also put in language to prohibit the government from requiring Americans to carry national identification cards.
However, language such as Mr. Armey wrote eliminating TIPS is apparently not included in the homeland-security legislation.
The defense of the legislation yesterday followed objections by a considerable number of privacy advocates who say the bill opens the way for government snooping and, in particular, would lead to an agency tasked with compiling an electronic profile of foreigners and American citizens alike, based on existing information from driver's licenses, e-mail, Internet purchases, telephone and bank records, passport applications and other surveillance data, even including toll-road payments.
The homeland-security legislation passed the House earlier this week with broad bipartisan support. But the bill still has privacy advocates worried about what powers the federal government may try to construe from the bill's language.
In particular, they fear the creation of a Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency — or HSARPA, in the alphabet-soup language of the bureaucracy. The program is designed to administer a grant program for research and development of homeland-security technology, such as sensors, to detect a chemical-weapons attack and methods to make computers more secure from cyber-attacks.
HSARPA's structure is modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a part of the Defense Department that has generally won approval for its efficiency and success in promoting research and development. DARPA was instrumental in creating the groundwork for the Internet. But one project apparently funded by DARPA, is the Total Information Awareness project, which critics say could create a computerized profile of the intimate details of a citizen's private life. This program would be under the supervision of Adm. John Poindexter, the national-security director under President Reagan who was convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra episode.
Privacy advocates worry that something similar — and aimed at Americans — could emerge from the legislation under the guise of homeland security.
Mr. Lieberman's spokeswoman discounts this prospect. She said there is "absolutely nothing in this legislation that ties it to DARPA's Total Information Awareness project." David Goldston, chief of staff for the House Science Committee, which helped write the HSARPA part of the bill, said it deals entirely with the "nuts-and-bolts" operation of funding technological research and would be placed in a different directorate from the information-gathering parts of the bill.
Mr. Diamond said Mr. Armey is concerned about the Total Information Awareness project and even though Mr. Armey is retiring this year, he will urge the next Congress to look closely at it. "Mr. Armey will encourage the next Congress to look into this Department of Defense program," Mr. Diamond said. "If it indeed does raise the same privacy problems that Operation TIPS does, Congress should deal with it in the same way — by banning it."”