Total Information Awareness: Back from the dead

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 27 March 2008 07:26AM CST

Section: Privacy

Total Information AwarenessFive years ago, the US Congress supposedly killed what was then known as the Total Information Awareness program, an enormous database maintained by the Pentagon that could be searched for suspicious behavior by US citizens. If it ever was killed, it’s back from the dead and in the hands of the National Security Agency (NSA), according to Siobhan Gorman’s report earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal.

It’s unknown what role the NSA plays in domestic intelligence gathering and surveillance but the agency’s role has historically been confined solely to foreign surveillance. Michael Hayden, then head of the NSA, expanded the NSA’s activities shortly after the 9/11 attacks under a 1981 executive order. An additional executive order issued by President Bush shortly after the attacks presumably expands the NSA’s reach even further, but remains classified. What is known, according Gorman, is that the NSA can—without a warrant—look at email subject lines, time sent, and recipient and sender addresses; websites visited; searches conducted; incoming and outgoing cellphone and landline numbers, locations, and call lengths; bank account information and wire transfers; credit card usage information; and airline passenger information.

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