The thing that spooks me about the Total Information Awareness program is that that it's inside DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. And unlike the CIA or the NSA, DARPA has a great track record of actually going out and making big technology happen -- because they're small, they're light, they're anti-bureaucratic, they're engineering minded. And Poindexter may be a convicted felon but he's a very, very smart guy. So where while I'd like to say there's no way that this is going to happen under any other circumstances, I'm less assured of that at the moment. [TL note: Poindexter is not a convicted felon--he was pardoned] The terrifying new reality that we're dealing with here is the fact that all data are now open to government scrutiny. All these things that have previously been sacrosanct and private are now available. And what's more frightening is that if you are managing one of those databases and the government says that it wants access to it for a completely open-ended search you are criminally liable if you if you tell the people in your database that the government is doing so. The whole dive shop thing [in June of last year], the government requested the records of everyone in the U.S. taking diving lessons] was exposed because one solitary dive shop owner in Los Angeles had the guts to come forward and say "Hey, we're not going to give you our database. And furthermore we're going to go to the press."

It's ridiculous, dangerous, grossly unconstitutional, and it's perfectly in keeping with what this administration's been doing across the board. This is an administration that has recently reserved to itself the right to kill American citizens anywhere on the planet for the mere suspicion of membership in Al Qaeda. That's really quite and awe-inspiring breakthrough. And the astonishing thing is that the American people are nodding along in their stupor and saying "Yeah, well, whatever it takes to stop terrorism." I'm so disappointed in my countrymen.