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CatfishAndGrits
This is reminiscent of the Dubai-Port fiasco (btw the UAE still will end up owning our ports on the sly thanks to legistlation passed to allow foreign entities to own our roads, ports, etc). This administration has, on a defiant level, refuse to do what Congress, and by extension the American people wants him to do. So it should come as no surprise when talking about privacy issues and TIAP (Total Information Awareness Program). When Congress was made "aware" of the Total Information Awareness program it freaked out even Republicans. So much so that in 2003, the Congress dismantle it..........or so it thought
Muuuwaaahahahahaha!!!
Just as with every other secret programs this administration has tried to operate outside the perview of the Constitution, when they were "leaked" you found that Congress had not been fully brief in closed sessions, and thus no oversight could occur -- in most cases only receiving a powerpoint presentation. Oversight implies that the overseer has a YEA, or NAY vote on the continuation of whatever they are overseeing. Simply telling Congress after the fact is
NOT oversight. First a brief description of what TIAP was and who was resurrected from the war criminal graveyard to head it:
TIAP - Total Information Awareness Program
The TIAP was an attempt to consolidate data mining operations, surveillance operations, and other information gather techniques under one umbrella. Now, mind you, that's what the Department of National Intelligence (DNI), headed by death-squad enabler John Negroponte, was suppose to do IN PUBLIC VIEW, or rather Congress' view. Where the issues lie is that TIAP would consolidate not only foreign data/intelligence but also American data. And that data would not have to be intelligence related, it could medical records, bank records, work history, finanacial records, voting records, travel logs, etc. - can we say 1984
Now let's move to the graveyard...
...bring your shovels
Who does saucy Bush select, obviously a man of humility, a man with integrity, skilled in pitting one foreign government against another....er..I mean foreign diplomacy. Who you say?
Mr. Iran-Contra Affair himself, John Poindexter
And now in USATODAY we find that Bush didn't really dismantle TIAP, he just stopped talking about it in public. According to USATODAY, "
...At least eight projects started under the controversial Total Information Awareness program continued after Congress disbanded the program in 2003, public records show...".
- A software project by 21st Century Technologies Inc. of Austin, called Automated Detection, Identification and Tracking of Deceptive Terrorist Activity.
- Research at the University of Connecticut to produce similar software that identifies patterns indicating possible terrorist activity in data about everyday transactions such as bank withdrawals and telephone calls.
- A related project involving the Connecticut team, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Aptima Inc. of Boston. This project developed software to allow analysts from different agencies to collaborate and share data over a secure computer network.
- Development of counterterrorism software by Metron Inc. of Reston, Va. Metron received at least $850,000 through August 2004 to create computer models to track and disrupt terrorist organizations, records show.
- Software development by researchers at Science Applications International Corp. to allow analysts to find information from separate databases.
- Research and development of tools to scan documents as they flow through high-speed computer networks to determine what language they're in and whether they might be related to terrorism.
- Computer models allowing intelligence analysts to examine the possible outcomes of various counterterrorism actions.
- A program to connect, update and support the data collection and analysis systems created for TIA.
Bush: "There's a reason I don't email.....I don't,..... I don't want cha readin' ma stuff..."