"The experimental and controversial Total Information Awareness program of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency exemplifies these issues. By merging records from corporate, medical, retail, educational, travel, telephone, and even veterinary sources, as well as such "biometric" data as fingerprints, iris and retina scans, DNA tests, and facial-characteristic measurements, the program is meant to create an unprecedented repository of information about both U.S. and foregners with U.S. contacts." -- Dan Farmer, "The Surveillance Nation," Technology Review, page 39, April 2003. [Dan Farmer, former chief of network security for Sun Microsystems, advised Congress on privacy & security in the Internet age, but is best known for having co-authored the computer program called SATAN, a network security analysis and probing program.

Digital face print to be required on travel documents, April 19, 2002 Dr. Joseph J. Atick, chairman and CEO of Visionics Corporation stated, "We are strongly encouraged by the Senate passage of this key piece of legislation and the impact it will have on homeland security. By requiring travel documents to include biometrics identifiers, such as fingerprint and face recognition, Congress has put forth the mechanism by which we can identify those who pose a threat to public safety..."

Canada contemplates giant database of medical records, 11/29/2002 "What he recommends would appear to be the end of health privacy as we know it," Radwanski said in an interview yesterday, accusing Romanow of paying lip service to privacy concerns while outlining a record system that would seriously violate privacy rights.

U.S. uses biometrics to track terror suspects, AP, Oct 30, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS The United States is compiling digital dossiers of the irises, fingerprints, faces and voices of terrorism suspects and using the information to track their movements and screen foreigners trying to enter the country.

U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally, Washington Post, 11/12/02, Robert O'Harrow Jr. "A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world."

Irises, Voices Give Away Terrorists 11/7/2002, CNN, November 7, 2002 (AP) -- The United States is compiling digital dossiers of the irises, fingerprints, faces and voices of terrorism suspects and using the information to track their movements and screen foreigners trying to enter the country.

DARPA's New Occult Logo with All-Seeing Eye, 11/14/2002, Cutting Edge Ministry "Therefore, the acronym formed by the name of this Bush Administration office is the old, pagan name for the Sun-God! Is it any wonder, then, that the Sun and its rays are so dramatically "out-raying" from this All-Seeing Eye of Lucifer on this I.A.O. symbol? You know, Illuminist John Poindexter could have come up with any name relating to the collection of information on American citizens; he did not need to come up with a name whose acronym equals the hidden, secret name of the Satanic god, Baal."

The Eye Is Watching, USA Daily, 11/21/02, Joe Sansone "In a bizarre & frightening case of life imitating art, the United States defense department has created an office that seeks those same limitless powers as Tolkien’s dark lord. The Information Awareness Office (IAO) seeks what it calls “Total Information Awareness”. The agency has even adopted the new world order symbol of the pyramid with the all knowing eye...."

US to set up 'Big Brother' citizen database, London Times, 11/22/02, Tim Reid The agency will fund the development of technologies to allow the Government to track e-mail, internet use, travel, credit card purchases, phone and bank records, medical files and every type of accessible private and public data into what the Pentagon described as “one centralised grand database”.

Massive database dragnet explored, San Jose Mercury News, 11/21/02, Jim Puzzangera "...the specter of the government analyzing records of everyday activities has conjured images of the all-knowing Big Brother government of Orwell's novel ``1984.'' Earlier this week, more than 30 civil liberties groups wrote to Senate leaders, urging them to stop further development of the system."

Pentagon delivers software to assess data on terrorists, Washington Times, Dec 18, 2002 The TIA would seek to create a massive database of billions of transactions — some public, some private. It would attempt to identify whether terrorists leave telltale transaction fingerprints while planning attacks. If so, TIA would find the fingerprints and alert law-enforcement agencies and the military.

Information Awareness Office Website Deletes Occult Logo, 12/18/2002, thememoryhole.org "Now, the IAO has removed its eye-death-ray logo, which was denounced far and wide as being Orwellian, Masonic, and just plain creepy as hell." --Russ Kick

Snooping in all the wrong places, 12/18/2002, by Jane Black, BW Online "What these plans, including TIA, have in common is the goal of collecting in a central repository what innocent citizens do, where, and with whom. The war on terrorism is a serious matter. But spying on everybody in an effort to catch a few bad guys is lousy policy -- whether it's a giant new federal agency like the Homeland Security Dept., TIPS, or the TIA database, which in addition to collecting personal data also proposes to use special software attached to high-tech security cameras for monitoring and categorizing the way you walk." -- Jane Black

Intelligence Official Will Lead TSA Profiling Effort, Washington Post, 12/24/2002 The federal Transportation Security Administration has hired an intelligence official with database expertise to oversee development of the agency's computer profiling system, a proposed network of supercomputers intended to instantly assess every passenger's background for potential ties to terrorism, officials close to the project said yesterday.

Senate Blocks Funding for Pentagon Database, Reuters, Jan 23, 2003 "There has got to be congressional approval to deploy these technologies, so this information doesn't get circulated indiscriminately all over government," he said. "But in striking the balance, when talking about matters of national security, those matters can go forward." --Wyden

Bush Backs Big Brother Database, CNET, January 30, 2003 A forthcoming U.S. government database will compile information from all federal agencies and the private sector on people deemed possible terrorist threats, President Bush said in his State of the Union address. Mr. Bush used the speech to announce the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), a mammoth data-collection project intended to fuse information collected domestically by police and internationally by spy agencies.

Feds Building Federal Data-Monitoring Site, January 31, 2003, Tech News The Bush administration is quietly assembling an Internet-wide monitoring center to detect and respond to attacks on vital information systems and key e-commerce sites.

Oracle joins in FBI, CIA database plans, The World Today, 2003, Feb 24 Oracle Corporation is working with the CIA and the FBI on plans to create a national database which will capture information on all Americans and quite possibly, people in the rest of the world.

Pentagon database to spy on Americans ZD Net, 2003, Feb 28 The US Defence Department has awarded millions of dollars to more than two-dozen research projects that involve a controversial data-mining project aimed at compiling electronic dossiers on Americans.

Government begins sifting databases to find clues...", usnews.com, April 7, 2003 Here's the plan: Book a seat, and a computer data-sifting process matches your name, address, birth date, and ticket-purchasing information against financial and comm- ercial databases and government watch lists. The goal is to verify your identity and look for any hint of a security risk.

Fears About DNA Testing Proposal, Julia Scheres, Wired, Mar. 31, 2003 A Justice Department proposal to create a database containing the DNA of suspected terrorists has raised fears that the measure would lead to so-called DNA dragnets.

Surviellance Nation, Technology Reveiw, April 2003 "By merging records from corporate, medical, retail, educa- tional, travel, telephone, and even veterinary sources, as well as such 'biometric' data as fingerprints, iris scans, DNA tests, and facial-characteristic measurements, the TIA program is intended to create an unprecedented repository of information about both U.S. citizens and foreigners with U.S. contacts." -- Dan Farmer, former chief of network security for Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Earthlink; also, co-author of the notorious program called SATAN that searches computer networks for security holes.

New UK passports to include face recognition data The Scotsman, Apr 28, 2003 Officials are to draw up plans for the new "smart" passports by next March, and hope to begin implementing the scheme by April 2005. The chip would carry facial recognition data about the parameters of the passport holder’s face, such as the exact distance between their eyes and the distance between their nose and chin." - The Scotsman, Apr 28, 2003

Report stirs fears of privacy violations, Washington Times, 2003 The program would collect personal information from driver's licenses, airline tickets, arrest reports, visas and work permits to analyze and predict terrorist attacks.

Engineering the Beast System, Infowars.com, Aug 2003, Alex Jones Shortly after Congress funded the Total Information Awareness Network, they still needed to claim that they had voted it down. Two weeks after announcing that the program had been de-funded (which wasn't true), the Associated Press ran the headline, "US May Adopt Florida Anti-Terror Database." It just so happens that Florida's anti-terror/crime system was designed by DARPA and, in truth, is nothing more than an already operating subdirectorate of the Pentagon. It turns out that dozens of other States already have the same system in place. And the best part is the name of the program, which the Feds designed, which they are now claiming that they just stumbled upon and are now adopting. It's called the matrix.

If It Looks Like TIA and Smells Like TIA, Nov. 22, 2003, Isaac Novak IF IT LOOKS LIKE TIA AND SMELLS LIKE TIA... Several news reports have recently caught my eye. Taken separately, they are just additional examples of the burgeoning surveillance state that is modern America; together, they are indicative of a coordinated plan to set up permanent monitoring of the American public and our activities - in short, a fully reconstituted Total Information Awareness. "Surveillance Nation, Part II", Technology Review, May 2003 "To further deter misuse, the database should preserve a record of its users and their actions. Such precautions are not only technically feasible but, to Lessing's way of thinking, simply good public policy. Still, he sees 'next to no chance' that such precautions will be implemented, because terrorist attacks have changed the government's attitude toward privacy." Technology Review, "Surveillance Nation, Part II", by Dan Farmer and Charles Mann, page 52, May 2003 (In other words, you're screwed.)

U.S. Pressing for High-Tech Spy Tools Yahoo News, Tue, Feb 24, 2004, U.S. National - AP, Feb 22 2004, by MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer: "The whole congressional action looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."

EU plans biometric visa divide, 09-10-2003, vnunet.com "The European Union plans to include facial and fingerprint biometric data on travel documents for non-EU foreign nationals by 2005. " By Lisa Kelly

Commission defends inclusion of biometrics in EU passports EUobserver.com, 02.03.2004 - 17:43 CET, by Sharon Spiteri The Commission last month proposed the inclusion of digital facial images and possibly fingerprints on EU passports and also suggested the creation of a register containing the fingerprints and other "relevant data" of EU passport applicants.

EU Commission plots global travel surveillance system The Register, 12 March 2004 Updated: 23:43 GMT Privacy International says the Commission "has engaged in a process of systematic deception and subterfuge... Not only has it allowed key privacy rights to be extinguished in a deal struck with the US last December, but it has also failed to disclose its own intention to establish a more extensive regime in the EU. The proposed EU surveillance system will be used not only for purposes of anti-terrorism, but also for immigration, law enforcement and customs....... The process that will result in the construction of a centralised European PNR database system is particularly fascinating because of the way it's being pitched as a protection mechanism and a convenience, rather than the foundation of a travel surveillance system.

DOD tries out biometric smart cards overseas 03/19/2004, Susan M. Menke, GCN (Government Computer News) The Defense Biometric Identification System, or DBIDS, places a digital fingerprint and photo on a smart card in a scalable configuration that local authorities can adapt to their requirements. The card goes to individuals who do not qualify for DOD's Common Access Card, although CAC holders in those locations must also register in DBIDS.

Campaigners fight biometric passports The Register, 1 April 2004, Updated: 13:30 GMT The face doesn't fit ICAO has decided that the initial international biometric standard for passports will be facial mapping. Fingerprinting may come later. The EU is already calling for fingerprints to be included, along with an associated European register of all biometrics. National authorities will store and share these vast data reserves.

Technology Strains to Find Menace in the Crowd, New York Times, May 31, 2004, Greg Mathews Advocates of face-recognition technology have long promoted it as one of the least intrusive biometrics, and potentially the most powerful because it can make use of a huge amount of existing data. "There are 1.2 billion digitized photos of people in databases around the world," the chief executive of Identix, Joseph J. Atick, said.

Fears of national ID with driver's licenses, September 2004 WorldnetDaily.com, September 28, 2004 According to the legislation, within three years of its enactment, no federal agency may accept for any official purpose a driver's license or identification card issued by a state that does not require applicants to provide Social Security number and "facial imaging capture."

Students' Privacy at Risk Des Moines Register, December 4, 2004 It feels like an idea straight from Big Brother: The federal government is looking into creating a national enrollment-record database that would track every college and university student in the country by Social Security number.

"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a grand virtual, centralized database." To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you -- passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosey neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance -- and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen. This is not some Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks." - William Safire, NYT, November 14, 2002

"Does the Brotherhood exist?" "That Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is yes or no. As long as you live, it will be a riddle in your mind." -- 1984 by George Orwell