Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans

The New York Times ^ | Saturday, November 09, 2002 | JOHN MARKOFF

[FoxPro]

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United States.

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.

[FoxPro]

Hey, I have a patent on something very close to this. Do you think the DOD will look at what I have? No way.

[Theyknow]

Sounds kind of creepy. How does everyone feel about this?

[SkyRat]

Scarry stuff. I don't like this one bit

[Grut]

Sounds kind of creepy. How does everyone feel about this?

Sounds kind of tenuous, like maybe the NYT is trying to scare people about the War on Terror. Still, we need to consider that at some point, the WOT may become so intrusive that it will be better to lose a few hundred people a year to terrorists than all our rights to the federal government.

[thedugal]

As long as Bush is president the government has a God given right to know what you're eating for dinner tonight.</bushbot>

Yes, it is scary. I want to win the war on terror by blowing the living crap out of Islamonazis, not by spying on my neighbor and putting him in jail for life after he finally spanks his spoiled rotten son.

[Highest Authority]

This is a good advertisement for scrambler systems. I think this crosses the line! I vote NO!

[mewzilla]

Let's consider the source of this story, folks...I'd believe the Weekly World News before anything I see in the NYT.

[SkyRat]

This is a good advertisement for scrambler systems.

I don't know. If this system is up and working the next logical step would be to ban all counter devices.

[Don Corleone]

After all..this is a Computer nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...

[DainBramage]

They'll probably name it JAWS or some other really smart low key name.

Kinda like Carnivore.

[verity]

Ah! The odor of paranoia in the morning!

[Consort]

TIPS would have done this overtly but no one liked TIPS. So, it will now be done totally covertly. It was going to happen — one way or another (or both ways).

[RichardW]

As I understand it this system would be designed to tie information together and see patterns that would help out to combat terrorism. Frankly, I don't care how much the government knows about me because I'm not breaking any laws or planning terrorism.

The government ALREADY has this information in one form or another. It just takes too long to show its relationships to people who would do us wrong. In the war on terrorism, times is of the essense. We can't fight it with 19th century paper trails. We need real time information.

[dr_who]

If politicians continue to take that attitude, there's going to be trouble.

[HiTech RedNeck]

We'd do well just to cook down the torrent of data we get now, let alone add more. Our problem isn't spying. We spy just fine already.

[RichardW]

9/11 proves we don't do as well as we should.

[Mamzelle]

And what would Bill Clinton have done with this info? Seems like he managed well enough with the IRS and the Secret Service punishing his political enemies and roughing up people who asked him impertinent questions--without the further intimidation of the Pentagon. Bush won't always be president.

Better yet, what will a President Hillary do with this info?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Frankly, I don't care how much the government knows about me because I'm not breaking any laws or planning terrorism.

The problems happen when someone in power gets a wild hair, or a personal vendetta, and decides you are a culprit on the flimsiest of "evidence." That's why the Fourth Amendment was put in the Constitution.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Had we been able to read what we already had data to show, without spying one iota more on US citizens, we would have easily put the kibosh on 9/11. Big Brother always starts out being kind.