LIberty and Security, Continued

So, WIRED mentions Orwell...

WIRED online has now posted some documents with technical details about the cooperation of AT&T with the no-warrent wiretapping of phone lines.

What I found most interesting is the end of the article, where WIRED asks what the data from the wiretapping was actually going to be used for. Apparently the point of the wiretapping was to do massive amounts of data collection, that could then be sifted to test the "Total Information Awareness" (later renamed "Terrorist Information Awareness") initiative to do data-mining on large amounts of data

At the very end of their post, they quote a 2003 DOD Inspector General's report about who is involved here:

For testing TIA capabilities, Darpa and the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) created an operational research and development environment that uses real-time feedback.... Among the agencies participating or planning to participate in the INSCOM "testing" are the "National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the DOD Counterintelligence Field Activity, the U.S. Strategic Command, the Special Operations Command, the Joint Forces Command and the Joint Warfare Analysis Center." There are also "discussions" going on to bring in "non-DOD federal agencies" such as the FBI.>/i>

Yow-- eight government agencies are going to be sifting through our conversations, plus "discussions" about more.

WIRED concludes, "This is the infrastructure for an Orwellian police state."

Yep. That's the problem. And most especially, it's an infrastructure that they have already said is not subject to warrents, or legal oversight of any kind; in fact, it's infrastructute that they have now told us we weren't even supposed to know about. Once they set up the infrastructure, why are we supposed to trust that nobody, ever, is going to decide to use it?

Once again, back to the quote from Eppers:
"Dangerous laws created by well intentioned people today can be used by dangerous people with evil intentions tomorrow."