FC: U.S. creates (another) surveillance office run by J. Poindexter

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4358017,00.html

   No more Mr Scrupulous Guy
   How one of the two brains behind the Iran-Contra scandal this week
   became one of America's most powerful men
   
   John Sutherland
   Guardian
   
   Monday February 18, 2002
   
   Last Wednesday something strange happened. The American population was
   instructed to panic. Place themselves, that is, on a state of highest
   vigilance. Some cataclysmic act of terrorism would happen - within
   hours. But nothing terrible happened. Something creepy did. On
   Thursday there was an inconspicuous news item. John M Poindexter had
   been appointed to head a new agency "to counter attacks on the US",
   such as Wednesday's no-show. It is equivalent, in British terms, to
   Jeffrey Archer being made chancellor of the exchequer.
   
   The agency which Poindexter will run is called the Information
   Awareness Office. You want to know what that is? Think, Big Brother is
   Watching You. IAO will supply federal officials with "instant"
   analysis on what is being written on email and said on phones all over
   the US. Domestic espionage. You want to test it out? Text-message any
   American friend, "Bmb OK. Allah gr8".
   
   The IAO is one of two new offshoots of the Pentagon-based Darpa - the
   Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (it's venerable ancestor,
   Arpa, invented the internet). The other new agency is called the
   Information Exploitation Office. Its mission is to supply similarly
   instant analysis about overseas enemy targets. IEO will employ the
   computerised sensor networks that have proved so successful in
   Afghanistan. And, from now on, America - with IEO guiding its smart
   weaponry - will launch sneak attacks. No more Mr Nice Guy.
   
   IOA and IEO will get a big chunk of the $48bn of the taxpayers' money
   George Bush is pumping into his war on the evildoers. Never again will
   it be said that US intelligence agencies went to sleep on the job - or
   that they were too careful about the American citizen's civil rights
   to do that job. No more Mr Scrupulous Guy.

   Poindexter is frighteningly smart and very unscrupulous. He graduated
   top of his class at the Naval Academy in 1958 and went on to a PhD in
   physics at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to
   uniform as America's best-educated sailor. He wasn't a desk warrior.
   Poindexter commanded missile destroyers. He won medals to hang
   alongside his academic diplomas. He is the model for Tom Clancy's
   hero, Jack Ryan.

   [...]




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