Stumbling blocks for big brother: the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program, under sustained attack for the past year, has suffered several recent setbacks.(Insider Report)

Score a few points for freedom fighters in the ongoing battle against the total surveillance state. The Defense Department's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, under sustained attack for the past year, has suffered several recent setbacks. The latest blow came on July 31st with the announcement that TIA's controversial chief, Rear Admiral John Poindexter, would be resigning. Poindexter became the focus of a fiery congressional brouhaha when his bizarre plans to launch a futures market trading in speculation on terror and assassination came to light during the last week of July. A couple of weeks earlier, on July 17th, the U.S. Senate voted to cut off funding for TIA's proposed computer-surveillance project that would have given the federal government wide-ranging capabilities to mine virtually all electronic records and transactions, including private personal records and telephone, fax, and e-mail transmissions.

Strong public opposition to TIA developed early this year as alarm spread over the potential for fedgov invasiveness and massive abuse under many of the program's proposed tasks and features. (See "Watching Your Every Move" in our January 27th issue.) The Bush administration, seeking to calm concerns, changed the name of the program to Terrorism Information Awareness. But it was obvious to many that the label change had done nothing to address fundamental concerns about the Orwellian dangers posed by the program. Despite administration claims that the TIA is essential to combat terrorism, the Senate was unconvinced. A July 14th proposal from the administration sponsored by Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) was rebuffed. It urged the Senate "to remove the provision that prohibits any research and development for the Terrorism Information Awareness program." "This provision," the statement from the Executive Office of the President said, "would deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism." Disregarding the administration's appeal, the unanimously passed Senate bill stipulated that no funds "may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program."

Bizarre Terror Betting Bazaar

One of Poindexter's most dangerous ideas, the futures market in terrorism, was almost at the point of being launched when it ran into a congressional buzzsaw. Registration of traders was to begin August 1st, and actual trading to begin October 1st, with an envisioned 10,000 investors by January 1, 2004.

The project, known as the Policy Analysis Market, reportedly was hatched by Poindexter's team at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research ...