The Bush Administration's Total Information Awareness program, developed by the Pentagon to mine the internet as well as public and private databases to locate suspicious, terrorist-scented patterns, has been assailed by activists who think it goes too far.rnrn
Critics say the system would be Big Brother incarnate, according to an article posted on Wired.com: a tool that would pry into the medical, financial, travel and educational transactions of law-abiding citizens. Advocates say that TIA is necessary to protect the U.S. against the evildoers.rnrn
Lobbying groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Eagle Forum worked together to find support for legislation that would withhold funding at least until questions about oversight of the program were answered. Legislation reflecting this was passed unanimously by the Senate last month.rnrn
In addition to a Pentagon database being especially attractive to hackers, it could be one-stop shopping for identity theft. "The mere gathering of this information is a risk," said Barbara Simons of the Association for Computing Machinery, a nonpartisan international organization.
