Total Information Awareness Resource Center
A source of information and action regarding the Total Information Awareness program for concerned citizens, legislators and the media

Links    Forum & Email List

Update 11/22/02: Senator Dianne Feinstein told the San Jose Mercury News that "she plans to introduce legislation to ensure that [Total Information Awareness] does not infringe on the privacy rights of Americans." Thank you to everyone who emailed her about TIA! Grassroots activism is not dead. Please thank Senator Feinstein (whether or not you vote in California) so we can show her the widespread support for her legislation.

ACTION ALERT! Email Senator Russ Feingold, Chairman of the US Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and let him know that you are concerned about the potential deterioration of your privacy due to the Total Information Awareness program. Ask him if the subcommittee can investigate possible violations of the 4th Amendment by the TIA program. Sample letter

The Total Information Awareness (TIA) program is a project of the Information Awareness Office (IAO), which is under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the Defense Department. In January 2002, former Reagan administration national security advisor John Poindexter was appointed to be the director of the newly-formed IAO. Here is how the Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. described Poindexter's past in a 11/12/02 news article:

"[Poindexter] was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair, which involved the secret sale of arms to Iran in the mid-1980s and diversion of profits to help the contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the highest-ranking Reagan administration official found guilty in the scandal. He was sentenced to six months in jail by a federal judge who called him "the decision-making head" of a scheme to deceive Congress. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in 1991, saying Poindexter's rights had been violated through the use of testimony he had given to Congress after being granted immunity."

The Information Awareness Office's stated 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 useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making." In non-bureaucratic speak, the IAO's purpose is "developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks" (Markoff, New York Times, 11/9/02).

Here is their undeniably creepy logo of an eye at the top of a pyramid watching the world, with the slogan Scientia est Potentia, Latin for Knowledge is Power:

The Total Information Awareness program is the main reason for the existence of the IAO and it receives the bulk of its funding. Right now, DARPA considers TIA research one of its main priorities. The TIA program is a project that would create a working model for a computerized profile of the intimate details of a citizen's private life. Neoconservative New York Times columnist William Safire notes the potential of the TIA program as follows:

"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 virtual, centralized grand database."

Here is how John Markoff of the New York Times describes the capability of the TIA program:

"...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."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and numerous other privacy and civil libertarian groups have lined up in opposition to the TIA program. The ACLU is sponsoring a fax campaign to President Bush asking for the elimination of the TIA program. EPIC is pursuing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Defense to obtain further information about the TIA program. Former senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.), a member of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, criticized the scope of Poindexter's program, saying it is "total overkill of intelligence" and a potentially "huge waste of money." "There's an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one," Hart said when told about the program.

According to a 11/13/02 Department of Defense press release, "Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Falls Church, Va., was awarded a $1,500,000 increment as part of a $62,876,051 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for total information awareness support on Nov. 7, 2002. Work will be performed in Arlington, Va., (5 percent), Falls Church (25 percent), and McLean, Va., (70 percent), and is expected to be completed by Nov. 7, 2007." Booz-Allen-Hamilton, a company that claims one of its core tenets is "social responsibility," looks to be very hypocritical in choosing to participate in the TIA program.

NEW! Politicians concerned about the Total Information Awareness program: former Vice-President Al Gore, House Majority Leader Tom Delay, Senate President Pro Tempore Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO), Republican Congressman Bob Barr, and Congressman Ron Paul.

Total Information Awareness Links

Total Information Awareness Forum and Email List
A place to discuss the Total Information Awareness Program and action in opposition to it.

Email the Webmaster

Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."