Orwell hadn't seen anything yet: a lesson in virtual profiling

Here I was having a quiet evening at home, and the Mysterious Cipher had to go and scare the hell out of me. Luckily for me, a quite night at home doesn't consist of searching Google for things like "hot underage terrorist honeys." Or honies. You get the point. Let's face it-- sometimes you're really, really grateful for the Internet, as I would have been growing up in the 80's still having to travel hours to the nearest good-sized city to find some cool album or book. But for a technology that's still in its relative infancy, and running pretty much in accordance with the GOP's beloved free market (you might recall how hard the GOP was fighting in the late 90's to keep Internet retailers free from dreaded taxes), the Bushies seem to be working awfully hard to turn it into a government-controlled database of the sort that Big Brother would jack off to. (Usually I avoid salty language, but why not take advantage of it while I still can?)

The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.

The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.

"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."

The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.

Note to self: send White House original proposal for the formation of government-contracted corporation called CONGA: [Office for the] Creation Of New Governmental Acronyms.