[FYI] (Fwd) FC: "Too Much Information" on Poindexter's TIA, from The New Yorker

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 12 Dec 2002 20:22:43 -0500
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: "Too Much Information" on Poindexter's TIA, from The New Yorker
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com


http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?021209ta_talk_hertzberg

    December 12, 2002 | home
    COMMENT
    TOO MUCH INFORMATIONIssue of 2002-12-09
    Posted 2002-12-02

    When it comes to concocting fevered visions of the future as a way
    of illuminating the present, Jules Verne got some things right in
    his time, Aldous Huxley got others, and George Orwell got still
    others. In our time--in this terror-haunted interlude (we hope) of
    background-hum dread and well-founded paranoia--no literary
    divinator gets it righter than the sci-fi pulp master Philip K.
    Dick, author of "Clans of the Alphane Moon" and dozens of other
    books, and inspirer of some of Hollywood's spookiest dystopias,
    including "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," and "Minority Report."
    And this is odd, given that he has been dead for twenty years. Too
    bad he's not still around. It would be interesting to get his take
    on the Information Awareness Office of the Defense Advanced
    Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense.

    The Information Awareness Office plays it so weird that one can't
    help suspecting that somebody on its staff might be putting us on.
    The Information Awareness Office's official seal features an
    occult pyramid topped with mystic all-seeing eye, like the one on
    the dollar bill. Its official motto is "Scientia Est Potentia,"
    which doesn't mean "science has a lot of potential." It means
    "knowledge is power." And its official mission is to "imagine,
    develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information
    technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information
    systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total
    information awareness."

    [...]




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