Total Information, Total Confusion

So let's join Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Edward "Pete" Aldridge at a recent Pentagon press briefing, where he's addressing concerns about the Pentagon's bold new plan to have Adm. John Poindexter personally review exactly what you bought in Safeway last week and all the dirty movies you ordered up in Motel 6 last time you were on the road.

Aldridge: "We established a project within DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, that would develop an experimental prototype--underline, experimental prototype--which we call the Total Information Awareness System. The purpose of TIA would be to determine the feasibility of searching vast quantities of data to determine links and patterns indicative of terrorist activities."

Aldridge reels off the TIA research menu: rapid language translation, using computer voice-recognition techniques; discovery of connections between transactions (involving passports, visas, work permits, driver's licenses and credit cards, of such things as airline tickets, rental cars and gun and chemical purchases) and events (such as arrests or suspicious activities).

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