Scientia est Potentia

In the latest of a string of questionable security measures taken by Washington, the Department of Defense recently announced its ongoing development of a system that, in its own words, will "revolutionize the ability of the United States 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 attacks." The system, ominously titled Total Information Awareness, will mine government and commercial databases for information such as credit-card transactions, medical records, travel history -- just about all the information they have on you -- and monitor it for behavior patterns indicative of terrorist activity.\nThe Information Awareness Office, a branch of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is developing the system. Heading up the IAO is former Reagan administration National Security Advisor John Poindexter. Poindexter gained notoriety during the Iran-Contra scandal -- in which the government used money earned from the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran to support the Contras in Central America -- for failing to inform Congress of certain elements of the operation. When asked why he withheld the information, Poindexter responded, "I simply did not want any outside interference." Poindexter was convicted of conspiracy, false statements, destruction and removal of records and obstruction to Congress, but the conviction was later overturned on account of immunity agreements surrounding his testimony. \nObviously there is cause for concern. An American Civil Liberties Union site on the issue reads: "While running for his presidency, George W. Bush said that he wanted to defend individual privacy. Yet the Defense Department program makes a mockery of such privacy protections and threatens to bulldoze the judicial and Congressional restraints that have protected the public against domestic spying." Certainly privacy is at stake when the government means to monitor the lives of citizens who have no record of criminal involvement. The government has responded to the apprehensions by affirming that the threats TIA poses to our privacy have been overblown -- there is no Orwellian subterfuge under way. DARPA has criticized liberty watchdog groups for making a big deal out of nothing. But whether or not monitoring our lives so closely is fundamentally wrong (which I believe it probably is), there is always a threat to our liberty when the government has as powerful a tool as TIA: The threat of foul play. Whatever Poindexter and DARPA might claim, I'm thankful that there are watchdog groups to safeguard my civil liberties in the face of such a potential foe. And with a director like Poindexter who is no stranger to foul play, it should come as no surprise to Washington that I feel uneasy.\n Hopefully what we can expect from TIA isn't illustrated in its almost comically Orwellian logo, which features an eye (Poindexter's?) atop a pyramid, as seen on the back of a dollar-bill, casting an eerie, watchful light on the Earth. An article on www.singminded.com aptly questioned the logo from a standpoint of public relations: "Did anyone stop to think that having this weird eyeball blanketing the planet in some sort of Star Wars death ray is perhaps less than reassuring imagery?" The office's slogan is no more reassuring: Scientia est Potentia -- Latin for, "Knowledge is Power." To what extent does Washington intend to use that power? Without the advocacy of our rights and those groups that stand up to protect them, I'm afraid of the answer.