Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Dr Strangelove strikes back?
A month back, I had posted a note about Admiral Pondexter's departure from the Pentagon. A good thing to, as I wrote, despite what I considered the relative merit of the terrorism futures idea. Now, Admiral Poindexter has written an op-ed in the New York Times about why noone should be afraid or concerned about the new surveillance technologies being planned. Unfortunately, he makes as little sense as uber-Patriot, John Ashcroft, which is a bit dissapointing.
But it is a myth that the Information Awareness Office intends to develop some kind of system to spy on Americans. The terrorism information program is not and never has been intended for use in surveillance against Americans. The program's research is aimed at detecting foreign terrorist planning. The experiments have used only data from foreign sources, data that is legally available to all agencies that participated. There is no use of credit-card, banking or other data on United States citizens.
Yeah, I guess he plans on leaving all of that to CAPPS II!
PS: BTW, the real inspiration for Kubrick's and George's Strangelove, Edward Teller, died the day before yesterday.
But it is a myth that the Information Awareness Office intends to develop some kind of system to spy on Americans. The terrorism information program is not and never has been intended for use in surveillance against Americans. The program's research is aimed at detecting foreign terrorist planning. The experiments have used only data from foreign sources, data that is legally available to all agencies that participated. There is no use of credit-card, banking or other data on United States citizens.
Yeah, I guess he plans on leaving all of that to CAPPS II!
PS: BTW, the real inspiration for Kubrick's and George's Strangelove, Edward Teller, died the day before yesterday.
