A hole in Big Brother’s pocket

Wired Magazine reports on a hearing last Thursday in the US House of Representatives on the fate of the most ambitious project in modern history to track down potential terrorists. The so-called National Security Service Analytical Center (NSBAC or, more commonly, NSAC) did not receive further funding from the parliament in the amount of $ 11 million, which the FBI who had created it was hoping for. The Center is the ideological successor to the notoriously sensational fall of 2002 program “Total Information Awareness” (TIA, logo on the left), the purpose of which was to collect personal information about literally all the inhabitants of the planet in real time.

A few weeks after its creation, the TIA became the main target for attacks by opponents of strengthening intelligence structures within the country. Her main ideologist, retired admiral and marine intelligence veteran John Poindexter, during his long career managed to earn a reputation as an uncompromising and determined businessman, without the slightest doubt starting projects in 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 special services abroad through the fingers, under the pressure of the public, the admiral was tried for war crimes, but the case was hushed up. And when the Bush administration needed people who did not stop at anything in the “fight against terrorism” after September 11, the choice fell on him.

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

This time it almost worked out. 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 receive records from all potentially interesting sources: phone calls and e-mail, medical services, and travel suspicious "personalities should have been brought under control.

But the second wave of funding, the feasibility of which was discussed on Thursday in Washington, was not destined to fill the pocket of fighters for strengthening paranoia. The Ministry of Justice, which includes the FBI, could not say a word to Congress about what the NSS 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 come up with anything to cover up its plans that were openly contrary to the constitution, remains a mystery. However, the fact that even in the modern atmosphere of permissiveness the American "hawks" can not do what they want, inspires a ray of hope.