DARPA Funds Internet Tracking Scheme

Here is yet another new post-Patriot Act 1 spy program that has just been funded with your and my tax dollars to help the government keep tabs on us, all done under the guise of tracking terrorist, of course.

Here is the link to the Slashdot article that I originally learned this from and here is a link to the original BBC article.

I guess that is what they meant when they said NASA is for the peole of the US, not the government.

One more unrelated program:
<http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590039368,00.html>

"They claim to cover 98 percent of Americans — you, your neighbors, your family members, your demographics, your lifestyle and purchasing habits,"

Welcome to Soviet America. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsdown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sssh.gif

Hmm, the government already has so much intelligence coming in from surveillance that they can't begin to look at it all. Everyone was so upset when some paperwork surfaced that in hind site should have alerted people to what was going to happen 9/11, but due to the volume of stuff it wasn't given the priority that it needed. This is a data mining application that tries to scan rapidly through all the data they are already mining and get something useful out of it.

There's nothing wrong with that. What you've got to worry about is how they get permission to do the archiving of information in the first place. So if you're concerned, write your congressman about your desire to see some civilian oversite of the powers granted to the government in the patriot act, but this particular project isn't anything special or particularly troublesome.

So DARPA kills the LifeLog project just as MetaCarta arrives on the scene? What a coincidence.

Just a name change I'm sure.

George Orwell got it right twenty years after his prediction - Big Brother Is Watching you!
The thing is, the Internet is the last free medium left to be brought under the Big Brother's ever increasing control. Orwell predicted that televisions would be used to control people. To a certain extent that's happening now.
But, the government is using the Internet to collect all kinds of data without our knowledge. There is no such thing as a secure internt whilst the likes of the CIA are snooping around, intercepting e-mails containing key words in the hope that they can catch a "subversive".
It is really quite dsturbing!

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But, the government is using the Internet to collect all kinds of data without our knowledge. There is no such thing as a secure internt whilst the likes of the CIA are snooping around, intercepting e-mails containing key words in the hope that they can catch a "subversive".


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You've GOT to be kidding! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif ... who ever told you that the internet was secure? And why did you believe them? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

I for one would submit to a background check to be able to show a special tracking ID with all kinds of personal information to just walk through an airport and on to a plane. I would also pay more for this option. I would also pay even more to know people who don't want to be subjected to a background check not be allowed on the same plane as my family or myself!

Brock... you've been reading my mind again, haven't you? So the chip is working? How's the reception? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[ QUOTE ]
Brock said:
I for one would submit to a background check to be able to show a special tracking ID with all kinds of personal information to just walk through an airport and on to a plane. I would also pay more for this option. I would also pay even more to know people who don't want to be subjected to a background check not be allowed on the same plane as my family or myself!

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Fortunately we still have a country where you can feel this way and voice your opinion freely. However due to more, and more people feeling this way, it shouldn't be long before exactly this sort of thing is mandatory. Then we will find ourselves wishing we had that other country back again.

Seems to be working /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I should have added that I don't think it should EVER be mandatory or ever be forced on people, why would or should it be? But whenever it is brought up it is shot down so fast as being an invasion of privacy. I am quite sure 100's of thousands of business travelers would jump at such a card. Isn't it my choice to submit to the check? Right now I don't have that choice because some people are against it. So someone else has spoken and chosen for me, putting their personal privacy above my family's safety and mine.

So who's right to choose it being taken away? I have no right as of this time to choose to fly with a higher security level, even at MY cost and MY choice.

I completely agree that it should be a CHOICE or an option; I don't understand why I don't have that right to choose /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Brock... pretty ironic, isn't it? What about MY rights? If I want to give up my freedoms for security, that should be my choice. I thought that's what made this country so great... we all have rights. How come the nay-sayers can have their rights but I can't have mine? Just somehow doesn't seem fair, does it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Taking someone else's privacy for the sake of your safety is a violation of the principles this country was built on. It isn't right to blame those that don't want to give up those freedoms for the lack of your safety. Ultimately your (and your families) safety is your resonsiblity, no one elses. But we have all fallen asleep at the wheel, just truckin' through our day with no regard or consideration to what is going on around us. We pay as much attention to our surroundings as a piece of toilet paper stuck to our shoes. We have relenquited control of children to schools, ourselves to government, our saftey to police, our lives to modern convieniences, our minds to the television, our privacy to public officals, and our integrity to ineffective laws, and we wonder why things aren't working?

I have the right to feel safe when I travel about this country. I have the right to go about unmolested. Those are rights that I am entitled to as an American citizen. And YOU don't have the right to deprive me of those rights. I should be able to CHOOSE what I want to make me feel safe. YOU have deprived me of that. YOU have no right to deprive me of my right to feel safe in the way in which I choose!

i have to say it dont bother me read my email i dont care listen to my phone calls it dont bother me at all.anything to prevent another 911 i will never forget that day.may they rest in peace.

raggie... I'm with ya, buddy. I don't care either... and mostly because I've never one one minute even EXPECTED anything involved with the internet to be in any way, shape or form... private. Anyone who has had those expectations is completely clueless as to what exactly the internet is.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif

Apart from the politics involved, not going there, but sacrificing freedom for security has never been good idea.

Mechanics of checking would be pretty poor because of quantity and probably subjective, anyone remember that guy McCarthy?

Reminded of the warning to investors, `past performance is not a guide to future trends`would any amount of checking have singled out the 9/11 hi-jackers?

Adam

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Sasha said:
I have the right to feel safe when I travel about this country. I have the right to go about unmolested. Those are rights that I am entitled to as an American citizen. And YOU don't have the right to deprive me of those rights. I should be able to CHOOSE what I want to make me feel safe. YOU have deprived me of that. YOU have no right to deprive me of my right to feel safe in the way in which I choose!

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you directing that at the terrorists or our protective government? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Throwing money at a "premium customer" ID card to bypass security checkpoint is gambling taken to the extreme. One sleeper terrorist on the ground crew (or one with $$ and a stolen identity) and you're f-ed.

The problem with trying to pass laws in order to "feel safe" is that there has never, and will never be, a law that a smart enough criminal can't get around. The only people who suffer under restrictive laws or privacy invading laws are we, the people who have no ill intentions to begin with.

So far as the idea of getting a background check card goes, what real difference would it ever make? After all, the hijackers created their own passports, that while not absolutely 100% perfect, were perfect enough that nobody stopped them or said anything about it. If they do go on to make a background check card, it will also be forgeable and what have you really accomplished except giving yourself that warm and cozy false feeling of safety, while also giving up very much of your private life to be cataloged and used by the government as they see fit. Doesn't seem like a very good trade-off to me.

The bottom line in my opinion is basically what Bravo25 said, if you are expecting anyone else to provide for your safety other than yourself then you are only fooling yourself into a false sense of security because nobody is better motivated nor in a better position to see to your own safety than you.

I will guarantee that if I'm ever on a hijacked plane that I won't just sit back and wait for someone from government law enforcement to come and rescue me like a helpless infant. I will fight my own battle just as anyone would have back in the days before everyone in this country became weak and dependant on the government for their security. I keep a loaded gun within easy reach whenever possible and I don't rely on anyone for my own security except for myself, and ultimately God.

I also don't choose to live my life in fear from any crazy Arab Muslims or any other boogy-man the power mongers in our government may hold up and try to frighten us into submission with. The only entity that I truly do fear, and is impossible for me to fight alone, is our own government, which if not kept in check will abuse it's power over us every chance it gets, or I should better say, those wicked people within our government will abuse whatever power they can obtain over us, and *knowledge is power*. This encroachment of government into my private life has been, and will likely continue to be, the biggest threat to my own personal security, barring a full scale war with another equally powerful nation of course.