Hole in the pocket of Big Brother

Wired Magazine reports on a hearing held last Thursday in the US House of Representatives on the future of the most ambitious project of total surveillance of potential terrorists in the modern history. The so-called National Security Service Analytical Center (NSBAC or, more often, NSAC) did not receive further funding from the parliament in the amount of $ 11 million, which the FBI that created it very much hoped for. The center is the ideological successor to the program “Total Information Awareness” (TIA, logo on the left), which was pretty much acclaimed in the fall of 2002, whose goal was to collect personal information on virtually all people on the planet in real time.



A few weeks after its creation, TIA became the main target for attacks by opponents of strengthening intelligence structures within the country. Its main ideologue, a retired admiral and veteran of marine intelligence, John Poindexter, during his long career, managed to earn the reputation of an uncompromising and decisive businessman, without the slightest doubt going into the projects of supplying money and weapons to pro-American regimes and rebels in the Middle East and Latin America . Despite the fact that in the USA, Themis traditionally looks at the "tricks" of the special services abroad through the fingers, under pressure from the public, the admiral was tried for war crimes, but the matter was hushed up. And when the Bush administration needed people who would stop at nothing in the “fight against terrorism” after September 11, the choice fell on him.



In addition to Poindexter, apparently, the same enthusiastic people worked on TIA. What is worth only the logo, which flaunts the Masonic symbol of the All-Seeing Eye, looking around the Western Hemisphere, which raised the conspiracy hysteria in society to an unprecedented level. However, the program was not allowed to turn around. After the outbreak of scandal in the press, Congress banned the activities of the TIA in the country. However, this only forced its creators to go into the shadows and continue to beat out funding for themselves through third-party "harmless" FBI projects. From time to time, the ghosts of the TIA floated here and there under various names, until, under the wing of the new anti-terrorist unit of the FBI NSB, the program again tried to “legalize”.



This time almost succeeded. In October, the National Security Service Analytical Center, consisting of 59 full-time employees, moved into a large new office and received $ 12 million to continue developing a database that would write to records from all potentially interesting sources: telephone calls and email, medical care, travel. Suspicious "personalities should have been put under control.

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But the second wave of funding, the expediency of which was discussed on Thursday in Washington, was not destined to fill the pocket of fighters for the strengthening of paranoia. The Ministry of Justice, which includes the FBI, could not say a word to Congress about what the NRC plans to spend money on. Whether this was the result of the fact that more and more experts expressed doubts about the usefulness of the global database, or that the FBI simply did not invent something than to cover up its plans that were frankly contradictory to the constitution - remains a mystery. However, the fact that even in the modern atmosphere of permissiveness American “hawks” cannot do what they want, inspires a ray of hope.