<nettime> Further Expansion of Internet Surveillance

["Eric Stewart" <ericstewart@imap.cc>]

I find this disturbing but, then again, I am almost becoming jaded as to
loss of rights.  It really seems anyway that it takes technical know-how
to have real privacy, given the fact that I and others have experienced
electronic harrasment in forms that supposedly don't even exist,
according to some.  How can one argue for protections against certain
internet technologies if their very existence is up for debate?

The following piece is taken from a Christian publication but it is one
that has been known to break some important stories in the past.  

The internet was, of course, developed by ARPA (Advanced Research
Projects Agency) which would later become DARPA as it attained residency
in the Department of Defense.  I cannot help but wonder if the net
itself isn't a trojan for the technically unsophistocated.  Is the
medium the missile?

I am really hoping for feedback through this forum, as I consider it
among the best I have seen.

http://prorev.com/2006/10/bush-regime-comes-up-with-new-way-to.htm

MARK CLAYTON, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - The US government is
developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of
data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to
government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of
terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts
of which are still under development - is already credited with helping
to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use
broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against
terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American
life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is
intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.

"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices,
like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces
everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all
those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots -
analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about.
 It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to
grips with.". . . 

Privacy concerns have torpedoed federal data-mining efforts in the past. 

In 2002, news reports revealed that the Defense Department was working
on Total Information Awareness, a project aimed at collecting and
sifting vast amounts of personal and government data for clues to
terrorism. An uproar caused Congress to cancel the TIA program a year
later. Echoes of a past controversial plan ADVISE "looks very much like
TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an
e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern
analysis." . . .

If an intro is in order, then please reference this:

Souljah
http://to-the-dome.blogspot.com/

*

-- 
  Eric Stewart
  ericstewart@imap.cc

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again


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