TIA - How government works.

[Seshmeister]

Does anyone remember the Total Information Awareness program? They later rebranded it the Terrorism Information Awareness Program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness

Back after 9-11 the most senior ranking guy behind the Iran Contra scandal somehow got asked back. Admiral Poindexter set this thing up.

Based on the concept of predictive policing, TIA aimed to gather detailed information about individuals in order to anticipate and prevent crimes before they are committed. As part of efforts to win the War on Terror, the program searched for all sorts of personal information in the hunt for terrorists around the globe. According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), TIA was the "biggest surveillance program in the history of the United States".

Even though this was soon after 9-11 when it went public people went crazy about this breach of privacy and freedom.

The program was suspended in late 2003 by the United States Congress after media reports criticized the government for attempting to establish "Total Information Awareness" over all citizens.

It's interesting that it was very mild compared to what Snowdon has now revealed the NSA is doing and that the US government just ignored US congress and did it anyway.

I'm surprised this isn't being mentioned more... I guess 10 years is now ancient history.

[Nitro Express]

There are actually two governments in the US Federal Government. One is the old constitutional republic that is based on representative government. Then there is the corporate government which is composed of various agencies that don't answer to the US Congress. These agencies are corporations, with unions that protect the employees from being fired, and a revolving door between them and the private sector. In short, corporations now run the US government and they bribe and blackmail the congress enough to stay in power. In fact if you work for one of these agencies and talk to a member of congress without permission, you can be terminated. It's gotten that bad.

All sorts of reality is being exposed in this regard. In fact, state legislatures are moving towards calling a constitutional convention and firing the US Federal Government and restoring the republic. It's been going on for 100 years. It's gradually gotten worse and worse and now it's causing so much damage the people have gotten stung enough they have had it. The main problem is you can't fix a problem you don't understand. Now I think more and more people are understanding the problem. Meanwhile you are going to have corrupt, corporate cronies in power trying everything they can to start another major war somewhere. They need another crisis to stay in power. The problem is that's hard to do once you have been exposed.

So it's going to be interesting.