FC: A prophetic post from 1987: Poindexter's database addiction

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

GHA = Global Hypermedia Advisor (think a massive, apparently structured, 
database)
NSC = National Security Council at the White House

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http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=MDCG.WAYNE.12352654309.BABYL%40MIT-OZ&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2BAs%2BI%2Brecall,%2Bthe%2BNSC%2Bwas%2Bdenied%2Blegal%2Baccess%2Bby%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3DMDCG.WAYNE.12352654309.BABYL%2540MIT-OZ%26rnum%3D1

From: Wayne McGuire (Wayne () OZ AI MIT EDU)
Subject: Filtering A Global Hypermedia Network
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Date: 1987-11-22 07:16:00 PST

[...]

Current online database vendors like Dialog and Mead Data Central are
already foreshadowings (albeit extremely primitive) of a GHA.  It is
interesting to recall that under the reign of John Poindexter, of
Irangate fame, the NSC was seeking to gain legal access to the records
of these companies, which store sensitive information about the search
targets and patterns of their users.  As I recall, the NSC was denied
legal access by Congress, but then there is always the problem of
illegal access, which is relatively trivial to accomplish wholesale by
intercepting telecommunications.

[...]




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