"Total Information Awareness" funds blocked by the Senate.

[Fausto]

Nice going guys.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.

 

[LakAttack]

You just beat me to posting this. Good news.

 

[Fausto]

Ought to be entertaining to hear Poindexter try to justify this 1984-esque garbage.

 

[justint]

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Nice going guys.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.

Isn't Poindexter a felon???

 

[XZeroII]

That's good.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

I think I will send Senator Wyden a thank-you letter.

 

[ProviaFan]

Awesome. This is good news.

 

[SaltBoy]

Link is bad for me. What's this all about in the first place?

 

[308nato]

Originally posted by: justint

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Nice going guys.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.

Isn't Poindexter a felon???

No, but I do believe that he is the infamous "Pinky" from Dick Marcinko's Rogue Warrior series. I could be wrong but I don't think so.

He deserves a quality kick in the balls in any case.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: justint

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Nice going guys.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.

Isn't Poindexter a felon???

"Critics of the project also have expressed concern that the project is being directed by Poindexter, a retired admiral who was convicted of deceiving Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal. His conviction was set aside on the grounds his immunized congressional testimony had been used against him. "

 

[Tripleshot]

Originally posted by: justint

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Nice going guys.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.

Isn't Poindexter a felon???

More important, who nominated him to the position? Takes a bucketful of guts to just throw a name out there with out checking references and work history. Who is minding the store? It ain't Bush (in this case, I hope )!

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Good to see the government won't cut off its nose to spite its face. I'm sure a lot of the Senators use the internet for email and/or purchasing. Why pass a law that'll infringe on your own civil rights?

By the way:

Senate gets it right. Blocks funding for "Information Awareness" program!
WOOT! Senate blocks funding for TIA!!!!

 

[Corn]

Ought to be entertaining to hear Poindexter try to justify this 1984-esque garbage.

Very entertaining I'm sure. While I understand wanting to thwart terrorist acts prior to them being committed, this subjects everyone to what basically amounts to unreasonable searches.

Logistically, this whole scheme is doomed to failure anyway. The whole premise of tracking credit card numbers and purchases is ridiculous as most retailers use encryption techniques to thwart what the government is basically attempting to do in the first place--while I'm sure that the government would be able to crack such protections, the time needed to do so for every credit card transaction alone would be prohibitive.

I have sent email to my elected representatives and voiced my concerns regarding this scheme. I would suggest everyone else do likewise.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Originally posted by: Corn
Logistically, this whole scheme is doomed to failure anyway. The whole premise of tracking credit card numbers and purchases is ridiculous as most retailers use encryption techniques to thwart what the government is basically attempting to do in the first place--while I'm sure that the government would be able to crack such protections, the time needed to do so for every credit card transaction alone would be prohibitive.

If tracking transactions in realtime proves unfeasible, what's to stop the Government from getting the information via subpeona. Granted this'll only work for US based transactions, but still...

Edit: Not subpeona, per se. I mean a Government mandate requiring companies to disclose transactions on a weekly/nightly basis.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: SaltBoy
Link is bad for me. What's this all about in the first place?

Total Information Awareness is an expansion of a program the military has been doing for a while; it will track every online action (email, websites, etc), bank records, phone calls, etc, etc... all in the hope of "catching terrorists"

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
I think I will send Senator Wyden a thank-you letter.

As will I. Despite popular opinion, there are some Democrats worth voting for (although Wyden and Wu are the only ones I know of).