Name Game

Since Total Information Awareness sounded like a scary and Orwellian super database made up of millions of bits of info scrubbed from every source you might encounter going about your simple, innocent life, the Pentagon has opted to change the system's name.

Now it will be Terrorism Information Awareness which tracks your every move. You don't have anything to hide in your driving record, passport applications, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, financial, education, medical, or housing records, or a problem with your fingerprints, irises, facial shape, and gait being cataloged now, do you?

Didn't think so.

Comments

[Lazarus]

Rick: It isn't clear at all. First, informaton doesn't physically exist and it doesn't belong to anybody. It isn't "paper" or "effects." No doubt they may need a warrent to physically take your servers. They may need a warrent to access your servers (though are the streams of electrons the same as an agent phsyically searching your house? unclear). But if you voluntarily give or sell them information on someone else from your servers, that isn't violating anyone's rights -- or if they search with a warrant.

FYI - pestering your Congresspeople is a sure way to get yourself in the evil database. 😉

[holger viking]

what about writing into hit and run with anti-ashcroft sloganeering? they're watching us. and how do we know that Lefty isn't a government agent provocateur?

[Stel]

This has been my main concern (aside from not liking the government tracking what I do). A database of this sort will be very vaulable information. This would be the perfect place for identity theft people to hack into and get the motherload of peoples private information. I'm not overly paranoid on this, but have been through identity theft once and don't plan on going through that mess again.

[Rick Barton]

"Just out of curiosity I just perused Amazon.com's Privacy Notice. It explicitly states that Amazon will share your information with other companies and the government."

I just went there:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/468496/002-4652291-0548001

And it says that it will release info "in compliance with the law"

Lazarus wrote:
"informaton doesn't physically exist and it doesn't belong to anybody. It isn't "paper"...No doubt they may need a warrent to physically take your servers."

They also need a warrent to access info about your specific trasactions. Go to google and access the terms I suggested and you can see court cases confirming this.

"FYI - pestering your Congresspeople is a sure way to get yourself in the evil database. ;)"

Thats just silly,maybe you were just kidding but we must get on our congress people if we want to fight the Patriot Act, and this threat.

[Rick Barton]

Lefty wrote:
" The gubmint shouldn't be able to take it(trasaction records) without showing cause, i.e. a warrant. I think the Patriot Act has changed that, though."

I'm not sure if Patriot give the government "carte blanche" for commercial transactions the way it does for library records but if it does, it is yet another reason to contact your congress person about it.

[Rick Barton]

From the story:"But DARPA noted that some current laws governing some categories of private information "may well constrain or ... completely preclude deployment of TIA search tools with respect to some data." The agency did not specify which data-mining software tools or private databases would fall into this forbidden category."

So; Its clear that private information is protected by law. Also note that they are only now acknowledging this this since their pet tyranny project is in a little trouble in congress.

[thomas szalizy]

shhhh. rick. by exposing the administrations blatant HUGE government hypocracsy you'll piss off the neocons who think that all this regime does is okay and wonderful. heil this brave new world.

[Lazarus]

No, Rick it isn't clear. The piece clearly says only SOME unspecificed information is protected. And it doesn't say this is protected by the Bill of Rights.

BTW - citing Government pencilnecks doesn't prove that anyone has a right to own or protect information not in their possesion.

[Lazarus]

From the story:

>>Also Tuesday, the Center for Democracy and Technology, a group that advocates online privacy, was giving a House Judiciary subcommittee a report that concluded, "There are few legal constraints on government access to commercial databases." Neither the Privacy Act nor the Constitution protects consumer data held by private companies, and other laws "are riddled with exceptions for law enforcement or intelligence uses."

[SM]

Laz,
Here's some info -
http://www.dmg.org/
http://www.thearling.com/dmintro/dmintro.htm

Regarding data-mining - The technology may not currently be where Poindexter wants it but you are fooling yourself if you thing that it cant be done. I have worked on datamining related technologies for years and i certainly would'nt mind signing up if they are recruiting. Sounds like fascinating problem. I am willing to forego my libertarian ideals if the price is right.

[Russ]

The only thing it's going to do is line the pockets of software companies trying to sell data mining vaporware. Because the next terrorist attack that is missed will be followed by cries of "Our computer systems are woefully inadequate. We need more money."

The most telling quote is from Poindexter: "...terrorists must engage in certain transactions to coordinate and conduct attacks against Americans, and these transactions form patterns that may be detectable." And maybe they aren't detectbale. Let's spend billions to find out if he's right or wrong. There will be bugs, and a couple thousand people will get pinched, hassled, arrested, and inconvenienced to the tune of several thousand dollars, but hey, it's all in the name of debugging software so it's OK. You can collect all the data you want, but when the program is written to only search for names starting with 'Al-', it's already compromised.

The simple solution is to just legally change your name to John Poindexter or George W. Bush and you'll probably be exempt from any output.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the habit of changing my gait every few months anyway, so I've got nothing to worry about.

[Anonymous]

This means we WILL have a ministry of silly walks!

[Russ]

Isn't the price being right a libertarian ideal? (I know, not when it's the government price.)

[Anonymous]

Hey people, what rights have you personally experienced that have been taken away? Yeah, that's right (I know, I've seen your records...) NONE. Sheesh, get a grip. You guys are soooo predictable.

[Lazarus]

SM: It will fail because computers don't have hunches or intuition, which means they won't be able to predict human beheviour very well outside of a confined environment.

The end result - waste of money, terrorists better at covering their tracks and a false sense of security. In short, a typical government operation. The fact that people here think it will acutally work and therefor is a threat to our liberty only shows how fundementally statist most libertarians are! Not to mention trusting the goverment and pieces of paper to protect "our" data!

[SM]

"data mining vaporware"

It won't get built overnight and i'm sure it will cough up of plenty of false positives. But thats very different from claiming, from a purely technological viewpoint, that some kind of heuristic system can't be built.

[SM]

"It will fail because computers don't have hunches or intuition ..."

Dont want to start an AI debate here but why do you think technologists like Bill Joy etc think that certain technologies should be regulated or banned ? Hint - It's not because they think it cant be done.

[SM]

"The fact that people here think it will acutally work and therefor is a threat to our liberty only shows how fundementally statist most libertarians are!"
For the record - i don't think TIA it is a good idea. Sheesh ... some people !!! But i'm still available at market rate +.

[joe]

So, by the administration's own logic...

It might be useful to know if a suspected terrorist bought gum. But there is no reason to look into whether that person - a suspected terrorist, mind you, who has been flagged for special attention - bought any firearms.

[Lazarus]

Well a system is still limited to its input. People will just buy stuff off the black market (or maybe a new secure network? c'mon libertarians, do you believe in the market or not? or it just easier to whine?)

[Sean]

The trick in the future is misinformation, multiple identities, ss #'s, grocery cards, birthdays. I already wear disguises to work and hang out in different parts of the buildings everyday. I'm known by three different names and frequently get invovlved in conversations about myself (from the third party perspective) with other coworkers (these are not always as flattering as I would hope, but you have to take your lumps). False addresses are easy with abandoned/unused housing or fictitious apartment numbers in large complexes. Be all that you can be, be all that several of you can be.

[dc]

privacy itself is not a civil right, however the gov't requiring banks or companies or individuals to supply it with information is a violation of rights.

[david f]

here's a question or two:

what right did the gov't have before 9/11/2001 to get this info we're all abstractly arguing about?

how did it change post PATRIOT? and is it a necessary change? (are we actually safer?)

how many drug arrests were there 10/2001-12/2001 compared with the same period in the year before?

did the government need this much more power to deal with terror?

drf

[Lazarus]

1. This is a non-starter anyway, as no system is smart enough to make any sense of this much information. Not a civil liberties issue - more likely a PR stunt and waste of taxpayer money.

2. Nobody here has yet to prove that one can "own" information on oneself. There is nothing inherently wrong with keeping records.

[Ed]

There is one solution to this invasion of privacy. They want total information, so we give them exactly what they have asked for. In keeping with fulfilling the spirit and the letter of the law, each day we voluntarily fill out a Total Information Report - Got up at 6:30, showered, brushed teeth, had bagel and OJ, got dressed, backed out of driveway - you get the idea. We mail these reports to the Pentagon, Justice Dept. and the White House every day, and we keep doing this until they realize they don't really want total information. One of the effects of this is that it might overload the system and shut it down. Wouldn't that be too bad? Ed.

[The Average American]

Excuse me, which way to the fingerprint line?

[Jarrod]

1a. The system doesn't have to make sense of the information to violate civil liberties. Actually, its probably better at violations the less sense it makes.

1b. Thanks in large part to Wal-Mart, the math exists to make sense of the amount of data being contemplated. The hardware can't be far behind.

2. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else and a system like this is not needed to manage external threats. In a larger society, we do not all know each other, thus the demand for an enormous database. One could argue that the level of privacy is the same in the small town and under the database. Where I have at least one problem is that everyone does not know everyone else in the database. Instead, one central authority knows everybody and the rest of us are in the dark.

[Lazarus]

Jarrod: Do you have links on the Walmart system? And as I said in #2 above, how does simply possessing and analyzing records violate any civil liberties?

[The Mountain Goat]

Lazarus, the violation of civil liberties start with freedom of association. Want to enter a stadium annonyomously? How about own a gun? Simple activities that could be done annonymously will be recorded. Right now, using a credit card or an ATM establishes a record, while paying cash may not. Once the data collection system is in place, good luck not providing the data. Right now I must provide a social security number for the "privilege" of driving a car.

What is wrong with analyzing records? One easy example: in the earlier blog on trademark infringement, those records showed a gun owner, and so a pre-dawn raid was used. If those records showed you purchase "too much" pain medication, or "too much" fertilizer, or take the wrong books out of the library, you may get the next flash-bang.

The issue is whether we have empowered a government to protect us, or to arrest us.

[Jarrod]

Lazarus,

I don't have any links for Wal-Mart. I do know that the underlying science is called, "Data Mining" and is used to find trends in huge amounts of information. Wal-Mart developed and used these methods to predict which item a customer would buy given that they already bought another item. They then used these predictions as a basis for stocking plans and store layout. I attended a lecture last year where the same techniques were being applied to assembling rail cars into trains for cross-country transport. The underlying math is very generic so there's no reason to think it wouldn't work well for TIA.

[Lazarus]

Goat: You do not have a "civil right" to live annonyomously and individuals (government or not) do have a right to keep records - you don't own information about yourself. And if anything this just encourages the growth of an off-the-books black market (like all government programs it will have unintended consequences).

Kicking down doors without a warrant is an entirely different issue...

--

Jarrod: But the proverbial map is not the territory. This might work for very specific actions (people buying things in a store) but how do my driving records indicate if I am a terrorist? Mountain, molehill, tempast, teapot, you fill in the rest.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, the name sounds too short... Total Information Awareness Machinated Assimilation Terminal... Yeah, with a nice friendly name like TIAMAT no one could possibly think it was in any way bad......

[Lefty]

TIA's watchword: Information is power. John Poindexter, a convicted (and pardoned) felon, runs it.

Any questions, class?

[Anonymous]

i thought it was Terrorista Information Awareness, what is it?

[david f]

hey lefty!

i have a question: don't you feel safer? huh? don't you? don't you? after all, this is only the efforts of the government to save us. to protect us. you know, the mechanisms that were in place didn't work, but they were rewarded with more money and more powers. DON'T YOU FEEL SAFER!!! WHAT!!!! ARE YOU HIDING SOMETHING???

(hypothetical: how would pro-PATRIOT people react if it were clinton/gore doing something like that?? -- look at post oklahoma city)

cheers,
drf

[Rick Barton]

If you make a purchase from, say, laissezfairebooks.com, the government has no right to know about that transaction as it pertains to you personally with out your consent unless a warrant is obtained. As is made clear by the Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches... shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."

This Poindexter (the crook) devised monstrosity would allow the government to violate our rights,
regardless of what ever less offensive name they want to call it.

[Anonymous]

That's it. I've had enough! I'm moving to Pago-Pago (or some such.)

-- Anonymous.
(and staying that way, thank you.)

[Lazarus]

Rick: Your consent is irrelvent in that case. If laissezfairebooks.com or Amazon.com sells or gives the information to anyone (private or public), that is their right. Information about you isn't YOUR person, house, papers or effects. Totally ineffective? Yes. Waste of money? Yes. Violation of our rights? Nope.

My guess is that they already do these types of activities, so if you are worried use cash and buy from trusted sellers. Remember kids, the black market is the free market!

[Jim N]

Ok, Lazarus, I'm not going to argue the civil rights issue with you. The problem is self-evident to most people, but you don't get it and probably never will.

Many of the objections to TIA, other than civil rights objections, have been regarding the possibility that the information could be hacked and abused by outsiders. I have a different problem -- I am concerned with actual gov't blackmail. If a person engages in activities which are displeasing to those in power, then it would be a simple matter to leak embarrassing information to the press. Remember MLK?

[Lefty]

drf, I really like your chirpy "cheers!" signoff but can't for the life of me de-code your message.

Laz and Rick, I think in the laissezfairebooks scenario, the problem is that Rick's info, once they get it and absent an agreement between them, is l'books' property. The gubmint shouldn't be able to take it without showing cause, i.e. a warrant. I think the Patriot Act has changed that, though.

[dude]

The Republicans are going to have a cow and sh*t two bricks when Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008 and declares the NRA and right to life groups terrorist organizations to be tracked and detained.

I'd almost say they deserve it. Limited government my ass.

[andy]

The best part of this has to be the research to identify people by the way they walk. I can't wait until, a couple of years from now, the streets of America are filled with people "mosey-ing" like George Jefferson to avoid government scrutiny.

[Lazaurs]

Jim: Self-evident? If it is such, articulate an argument!

As for the rest, others get your information all the time. The criminal is the fraudulent impersonator, not the original compiler of information. And "blackmail" isn't morally wrong - we have free speech and free press. If Dr. King was worried about his reputation he shouldn't have beeen messin' around!

A free society is an open society!

[Lazarus]

Lefty: That is exactly my point, but they could also voluntarily share or sell the information -- if the wished.

[Lazarus]

...though the property referenced would only be the devices or physical records (paper, disks, etc.) You can't own information.

Hope this doesn't tumble into an IP discussion, they are usually productive as Union vs. Confederate, micharchist vs. anarchist, LP vs GOP...

[JDM]

andy,

At least the terrorists will have to whack themselves in the knee with a hammer before they can walk through an airport.

Take that Habib!

[david f]

hey Lefty!

"chirpy"??? damn. i'll go have me an amstel light now. ha ha.

but Dude does have a point. the conservatives (meaning big government in their image - not "less government" as they claim) portrayed the law enforcement abuses of the 90s as a janet reno problem, when ruby ridge happened on bush I's watch. and the "militia crackdown" was cited, correctly, as abuse of government power.

now that the conservatives are in total power (save a justice or two), they're setting up institutions to follow their own bidding but forget what prez clinton II will do.

as for the books -- i don't think the govt should be able to see who got out what book where or when, "just cuz it might lead to something". what, a student gets "mein kampf" or "das kapital" or "life and times of freddy laker" and all of a sudden is being watched??? (and then open to Jim N's blackmail)

george jefferson or silly walks for everyone!

drf

[Rick Barton]

"Information about you isn't YOUR person, house, papers or effects."

Wrong!
Information about specific cyber-transactions are the info-age equivalent of your "papers" that the framers of the constitution wrote about in the Fourth Amendment. For the government to access your specific transactions is a clear violation of your fourth amendment rights. Go to Google and search for "amendment IX court cases" and you can see this right being upheld in practice. Also, The Pentagon now claims that they will only "analyze legally aquired information" if congress approves this. Yeah, right. Contact your congress person and senatores and tell them it does not matter what they call it, it is still un-American and dangerous!

[Hank]

Just out of curiosity I just perused Amazon.com's Privacy Notice. It explicitly states that Amazon will share your information with other companies and the government. So whenever you purchase something for Amazon you are effectively agreeing to share your information with whomever Amazon sees fit.

I have to agree with Laz, zero "civil rights" violations here. If you want to stay anonymous, stick with cash and where a mask, oh, and practice walking different ways. Of course, getting the cash anonymously may pose a problem.

I also like to say that there should be a nice market for hackers who can crack this dbase and scrub people's records. Viva capitalism!

[Trousseau]

So you're in the habit of changing your gait every few months and you think you've got nothing to worry about?

What, on Mondays you'll slink like the Pink Panther? On Tuesdays you 'll dance like a black brother without his boom box? On Fridays you'll wiggle your booty a bit?

Hey man, they've got all those moves down on tape. And you'll be nabbed every day of the week, because they've mistaken you for yet another Pink Panther.

[Demosthenes]

Sheesh! Some people will expend a whole lot of energy and go through all sorts of trouble, just to be left alone.

[Lazarus]

drf: Thanks for the link.

"The government should:" - oops, you already lost my interest. What people should do is rarely what they do. In an ideal world I would probably score libertarian.

[Rick Barton]

Lazarus,

"but don't expect praise from me!"

What? "Praise"? Just "praise"? Lazarus, I was hoping you would help out! 🙂

[Methusela]

Lazarus, you say: "invent and market a product to ease your fears. . ."

Yeah, right. I did that. Way back when. I invented the phone booth. But, today, in an attempt at invading your privacy, they shelved my invention.

Fat chance then.

[Lazarus]

dc: Not necessarily, such info may be required as a condition of doing business with the Feds - such as soc. sec #s, $ income, etc. More reason to avoid this business!

--

Rick: Working through the government to reduce government and increase "liberty" is futile and shows a fundamentally statist attitude. The TIA system is flawed since it relies entirely on the inputs, most of which is VOLUNTARILY supplied. People will lie, misinform, buy things off the books -- just human nature. They don't have to even live underground, most already do this with their income taxes! I am not worried about it...and if you are Rick, invent and market a product to ease your fears instead of whining to your braindead corrupt spineless congressperson.

My shot at most libertarians is justified - most are like communists whining about a corporation while also purchasing its products.

[Rick Barton]

"Rick: Working through the government to reduce government and increase "liberty" is futile and shows a fundamentally statist attitude."

Efforts that have resulted in cut taxes, abolished
agencies, less government spending, lower tarrifs,less regulation is anti-statist of course.
Sure, we lose alot but not always. How much worse
might things be if we didn't try? Your putting the word "government" in the sentence twice does not establish a contradiction. Sounds like you are employing "Jessie Jackson" logic.

"most libertarians...are like communists whining about a corporation while also purchasing its products."

That is just not analagous. Fighting statism and increasing freedom and its abundant fruits is a consistant course of action given libertarian principles. Remember principle?

[david f]

hey laz!

we do disagree on many parts of the role of govt, but your last paragraph above caused the knee jerk reaction from me:

"neoconservatives are nothing more than religious-politically correct types, just the flip side of the coin, wanting basically to control our behavior. BIG government types"

but that doesn't solve anything. and it's pointless to get into that kind of name calling. we see it here: the charge of antisemitism gets flung out there the way "racism" got thrown to non lefties during my college years. or sexism or elitism. now it's "morally bankrupt"...

having a distrust of government abuses or not wishing an activist govt on either side certainly doesn't put the libertarian into that euro-weenie/ hollywood star who decries capitalism while reaping the maximum of its benefits.

how did you feel about the backlash against the militia movement about 7 or 8 years ago? waco? ruby ridge? we heard a whole bunch from the contract with america crowd that the gov't should be "run like a business". yet after the 9/11 failures, unlike a business, those very organizations that failed were rewarded with more money and power than imaginable.

what about the clintonian measures to do the entire anally-invasive rooter-rooter background checks for those who would wish to purchase a firearm? once concern oft-cited in (i believe the american spectator, but i'd betcha the NRO would have a similar sentiment) the conservative wings was the correct comment of fearing govt keeping track of that kind of info. quite right.

now, as for paying with cash or using various mechanisms of the free market to thwart federal collection of data, KUDOS!!!! excellent call (not the black market, but the cash market, the finding a private alternative, etc)

i sent a package to vermont, it cost 43.50. i paid cash and they refused it. the guy behind the counter, who's dumber than forest gump or what -not, REFUSED the cash, saying that over 40.00 they only take cards or checks. sheesh. so i schlepped it over to a private firm (30 minutes out of my way) where i proudly paid cash. so, your point of finding another way and not playing "haaid-d'salaami" with them can work!

so, not name calling here, but seriously your feelings on libertarians match mine on various strains of conservativism. and that doesn't further our discourse.

cheers!
drf

[Lazarus]

Rick: I hope that was humor. If you can show me a single result from your efforts I might be impressed. Less spending? ha! LOWER taxes? whatever. Less regulation? Puh-lese! Fight the good fight if it floats your boat, but don't expect praise from me!

--

drf: Not to burst your bubble, but I am not a neoconservative. I suppose "pragmatic individualist " would fit more than anything, though I am skeptical of any neat political catagories. Government is inherently corrupt and anti-libertarian.

Those that wish it to be anything else - such as Rick and 99% of other so-called libertarians - are fundementally statist and utopian and do little to advance liberty (which most can't define anyway).

This a can of worms. Page me via email if you like to dicuss further.

[david f]

hey Laz!

cool! where do you fall on politopia.com's little quiz? it's a fun one, and it's not really loaded as many of them are...

have a great day (man, it's a beauty here in chicago!),
drf

[Rick Barton]

Lazarus wrote:
"In short, a typical government operation. The fact that people here think it will acutally work and therefor is a threat to our liberty only shows how fundementally statist most libertarians are!"

Its very existance is a violation of our liberty. Government programs don't have to "work" to harm us. Although, in some areas, we would be in more dire straits if government were not so inefficient. What's "fundementally statist" is to pretend that the TIA is benign and not fight it.

But then, Lazarus wrote:
"People will just buy stuff off the black market (or maybe a new secure network? c'mon libertarians, do you believe in the market or not?"

What? Now he says we should go underground in response to what he said, before, was not a really a threat! He seems to say "do anything instead of actually fighting the state." It's because we do believe in the market and freedom in general that it is worth working to reduce the state.

[Baty Janna]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
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DATE: 01/19/2004 07:57:45
You do a good work, keep it going

[Lowther Victoria]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 80.55.94.165
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DATE: 05/20/2004 03:14:30
People are just smart enough to not be happily ignorant.