[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Pentagon wants a "Big Brother" supercomputer, from NYT

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

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Tue, 12 Nov 2002 23:59:52 -0500
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Pentagon wants a "Big Brother" supercomputer, from NYT
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

Previous Politech message:

"U.S. creates (another) surveillance office run by J. Poindexter"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03153.html

---

From: "Danny Yavuzkurt" <ayavuzk@fas.harvard.edu>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: Pentagon desires 'Big Brother' supercomputer
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 12:12:05 -0500

Don't know if you've seen this article already, Declan (I assume you
have, it's a couple of days old), but everyone on Slashdot was talking
(http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/11/09/2242250) about this
article at the New York Times
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html) that makes
CopNet look like an Atari 2600.  Who's involved?  Are you not
surprised to find out it's Vice Admiral John Poindexter, of
Iran-Contra infamy (he was Reagan's National Security Director, and
would've been convicted of felonies, if it hadn't been for Reagan's
protection..).  Now, combine that with, oh my god, he's the director
of the IAO (http://www.darpa.mil/iao/, have you ever seen a more
disturbing logo - or mission statement?).. and you can see why we're
worried.

According to the article, the IAO is responsible - no surprise - for
"developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11
attacks," and the supercomputer idea is reportedly being mulled over
by Rumsfeld, who was seen having lunch with Poindexter.  It's all
hush-hush, the administration won't comment on it, and civil liberties
advocates aren't the only ones worried - hell, even the panel the
Pentagon hired to review it is having second thoughts.  Here's a
direct paragraph from the article: ----- "A lot of my colleagues are
uncomfortable about this and worry about the potential uses that this
technology might be put, if not by this administration then by a
future one," said Barbara Simon, a computer scientist who is past
president of the Association of Computing Machinery. "Once you've got
it in place you can't control it." -----

Looks like the people who know the technology, at least, have their
heads on straight about this.  Too bad the government pinheads and
Poindexters think technology can solve all our security problems - and
that we should go ahead and line up to be strip-searched of our rights
to 'prevent terrorism'.  So, data mining of all Americans' credit card
data, cross-referenced with traffic violations, Usenet posts, and
medical records, will suppsedly detect terrorists?  It doesn't take a
genius to see that this system will be far more useful for creating
'enemies lists' Nixon would have killed for, suppressing internal
dissent, harrassing law-abiding citizens, and, eventually, turning
this country into the police state the Pentagon - and, apparently, the
Bush administration - wants.

Danny

---

Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 09:35:58 -0600
To: declan@well.com
From: Scott Schram <scott@schram.net>
Subject: NYTimes: Pentagon Plans "Total Information Awareness"

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html

(Registration required.)

Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of
Americans By JOHN MARKOFF

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a
vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of
the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United
States.

As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has
described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will
provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with
instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records
to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without
a search warrant.

<snip>

---

To: "Declan@Well. Com" <declan@well.com>
Subject: FW: Poindexter et al (was Surveillance ...)
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 12:50:55 -0800

Declan,

I posted this reply to an e-mail list that I'm on. You've probably
seen the NYT lead in article at this point, and are much more aware of
the political background. Personally, I'm dismayed by how many
retreaded apparatchiks with what I'd view as unsavory backgorounds are
being re-instated within the current government and administration.

(no attribution thanks)


XXXX wrote:
That the issue is being reported by the NYT suggests the system
already exists and may have existed for many years. Now it's just a
matter of the extent to which it will be used by those with the
authority to use it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html?ex=1037509200&e
n=873ff5626a3c666e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------- ---------------

Excerpt:
As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has
described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will
provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with
instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records
to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without
a search warrant.

Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been
permitted to spy on Americans without extraordinary legal
authorization. But Admiral Poindexter, the former national security
adviser in the Reagan administration, has argued that the government
needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of minute
details of electronic life in the United States.

Admiral Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and
speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said that the government
needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and
government databases, allowing teams of intelligence agency analysts
to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.

"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we
find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old,
generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to
knowledge, and create actionable options," he said in a speech in
California earlier this year.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------- ---------------

Doesn't that name Poindexter sound familiar?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm

Manuel Noriega
In June, 1986, the New York Times published articles detailing years
of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega's collaboration with Colombian
drug traffickers. Reporter Seymour Hersh wrote that Noriega "is
extensively involved in illicit money laundering and drug activities,"
and that an unnamed White House official "said the most significant
drug running in Panama was being directed by General Noriega." In
August, Noriega, a long-standing U.S. intelligence asset, sent an
emissary to Washington to seek assistance from the Reagan
administration in rehabilitating his drug-stained reputation.
  Oliver North, who met with Noriega's representative, described the
  meeting in
an August 23, 1986 e-mail message to Reagan national security advisor
John Poindexter. "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega
in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship," North
writes before explaining Noriega's proposal. If U.S. officials can
"help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the
Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista
leadership for us."

North tells Poindexter that Noriega can assist with sabotage against
the Sandinistas, and suggests paying Noriega a million dollars -- from
"Project Democracy" funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran --
for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic
installations.

  The same day Poindexter responds with an e-mail message authorizing
  North to
meet secretly with Noriega. "I have nothing against him other than his
illegal activities," Poindexter writes.

  On the following day, August 24, North's notebook records a meeting
  with CIA
official Duane "Dewey" Clarridge on Noriega's overture. They decided,
according to this entry, to "send word back to Noriega to meet in
Europe or Israel."

  The CIA's Alan Fiers later recalls North's involvement with the
  Noriega
sabotage proposal. In testimony at the 1992 trial of former CIA
official Clair George, Fiers describes North's plan as it was
discussed at a meeting of the Reagan administration's Restricted
Interagency Group: "[North] made a very strong suggestion that . . .
there needed to be a resistance presence in the western part of
Nicaragua, where the resistance did not operate. And he said, 'I can
arrange to have General Noriega execute some insurgent -- some
operations there -- sabotage operations in that area. It will cost us
about $1 million. Do we want to do it?' And there was significant
silence at the table. And then I recall I said, 'No. We don't want to
do that.'"

  Senior officials ignored Fiers' opinion. On September 20, North
  informed
Poindexter via e-mail that "Noriega wants to meet me in London" and
that both Elliott Abrams and Secretary of State George Shultz support
the initiative. Two days later, Poindexter authorized the
North/Noriega meeting.

  North's notebook lists details of his meeting with Noriega, which
  took place
in a London hotel on September 22. According to the notes, the two
discussed developing a commando training program in Panama, with
Israeli support, for the contras and Afghani rebels. They also spoke
of sabotaging major economic targets in the Managua area, including an
airport, an oil refinery, and electric and telephone systems. (These
plans were apparently aborted when the Iran-Contra scandal broke in
November 1986.)


----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------- ---------------

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/DOCUMENT/940411.htm

[...]
There's something about the White House electronic mail that seems to
bring out the worst tendencies among government officials, whoever's
in the White House:


Oliver North and national security adviser John Poindexter
electronically shredded thousands of their E-mail messages on their
way out of the NSC in November 1986 (but the system's back-up tapes
allowed investigators to recover these messages and use them as legal
evidence). The Reagan Administration, with the acquiescence of the
National Archives, planned to blip out all the E-mail memory and
backup tapes on its way out of office in January 1989, only to be
stopped by our lawsuit. After we won court rulings establishing that
the records laws apply to e-mail, the Bush Administration staged a
midnight ride on Inauguration Eve 1993 to round up the computer tapes
and put them beyond the law, under a secret agreement which purported
to give Mr. Bush control of the tapes, contrary to the post-Watergate
Presidential Records Act.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--------- ---------------

Back in 1996, a Mercury News reporter, Webb, published a series titled
"Dark Alliance" which drew links between the surge in crack cocaine
usage in LA's black neighborhoods (which remains a big probelem today)
with the possible CIA link to the Contras. The author subsequently
wrote a book of teh same name, and most of the original article seems
to be printed here:

http://home.attbi.com/~gary.webb/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html


Here's a review of the media over-reaction against the article (it has
links to some related reading):

http://www.parascope.com/articles/1196/media.htm

And another "Dark Alliance" page:

http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/DARKALLIANCE/


---


Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 16:00:01 -0800
From: "Da'ud X Mohammed" <webmaster@ocnsignal.com>
Reply-To: webmaster@ocnsignal.com
Organization: Oregon Coast News Signal

Hullo Declan,

Two stories:

1. Besides what Poindexter is back to do...

2. He's back!

First the two e-mails you sent, then the following.

Is there a trend here??

Thanks.

With peace

dxm

**********

source: http://cryptome.org/tia-queeg.htm

The New York Times, November 9, 2002

INTELLIGENCE

Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of
Americans

By JOHN MARKOFF

The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a
vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of
the hunt for terrorists around the globe -- including the United
States. As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter,
has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it
will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with
instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records
to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without
a search warrant.

[SNIP]

Declan McCullagh wrote:

>---
>Subject: Prisoners of K Street
>Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 12:36:54 -0500
>From: "James V. Delong" <JDeLong@cei.org>
>To: "Declan McCullagh (E-mail)" <declan@well.com>
>  Declan -
>Re your piece this morning.
>Best,
>Jim
>  http://www.cei.org/utils/printer.cfm?AID=1923
>---
>    Prisoners of K Street
>    UpDates
>    by James V. DeLong
>    November 1, 2000
>                             From the October/November issue of CEI
>                             UpDate
>    Recently I was talking with Roger Cochetti, VP of Network
>    Solutions and experienced observer of the high tech scene. "The
>    Internet is at a fork," he said. "Over the next couple of years
>    it could be confirmed in its existence as a free-market,
>    free-wheeling, chaotic, fount of imaginative innovation and
>    multiplying value. Or it could go down the road taken by
>    broadcasting and telephone, becoming regulated, stodgy, hostile
>    to technical progress, and lawyer-driven."


[SNIP]

Declan McCullagh wrote:

 >
 > http://news.com.com/2010-1071-965160.html
 >
 >    Perspective: Don't get mad, get even
 >    By Declan McCullagh
 >    November 11, 2002, 4:00 AM PT
 >
 >    WASHINGTON -- The National Rifle Association rates politicians
 on >    whether they support the Second Amendment. > >    Emily's
 List gives campaign cash to pro-choice Democratic women. The >   
 Club for Growth supports politicos who pledge to lower taxes and
 limit >    government, while aiming to defeat tax-and-spenders. > >  
  Is it time for the technology industry to come up with a similar way
 >    to reward friends and punish enemies?

[SNIP]

---

From: "alex kananaskis"
To: declan@well.com
Cc: politech@politechbot.com
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 03:19:02 -0500
Subject: 'total information awareness' from darpa

hi declan,

[please hide my address]
hope you've seen this from the nytimes, about what vice adm.
poindexter's orwellian-sounding 'office of information awareness' is
up to behind the scenes at darpa. a plan is afoot to implement a
system for mining and monitoring vast quantities of electronic data-
way past echelon, and similar to rissnet in terms of cross-referencing
ability- about people around the world, including in the usa. as the
piece notes, this would require dismembering the enshrined privacy act
of 1974.

epic's marc rotenberg: "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the
technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a
system of national surveillance of the American public."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html?ex=1037854354&e
i=1&en=2c953778a582ee6b

ever vigilant,
alex

ps- how do you libertarians respond when people like acm's barbara
simon warn "Once you've got it in place you can't control it"?  the
state does enforce its monopoly after all...





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