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Big Brother is Watching You

TimmyBoy said:
Don't know how many of you have heard of the program called Echelon or the Total Awareness Information System. Here is a widepedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Both Clinton proposals. AFAIK the TAIS was defeated thanks to conservative and libertarian objections. Echelon is/was a needed program.
 
If its highly secretive, how come everybody knows about it now?

Regardless of whether its a Clinton proposal or a Bush proposal, all forms of these secret spy things should be eliminated.
 
If its highly secretive, how come everybody knows about it now?

They were never totally secret.

The "Total Information Awareness" program, or as it was later known, "Terrorism Information Awareness" program was supposedly killed by Congress when Congress cut off funding due to concerns about the extensive data-mining capabilities (and consequent civil liberty implications of misuse of same) envisioned by DARPA, under whose auspices the program was to be developed.

TIA intent, DARPA said, was to "protect citizens by detecting and defeating foreign terrorist threats before an attack." Sounds a bit like the language Bush used when describing the NSA surveillance program the other day, doesn't it? Hence, the suspicion in some circles that some aspect of TIA has lived on or been resurrected for the current surveillance program.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation continues to maintain info on its website, here.
 
oldreliable67 said:
They were never totally secret.

The "Total Information Awareness" program, or as it was later known, "Terrorism Information Awareness" program was supposedly killed by Congress when Congress cut off funding due to concerns about the extensive data-mining capabilities (and consequent civil liberty implications of misuse of same) envisioned by DARPA, under whose auspices the program was to be developed.

TIA intent, DARPA said, was to "protect citizens by detecting and defeating foreign terrorist threats before an attack." Sounds a bit like the language Bush used when describing the NSA surveillance program the other day, doesn't it? Hence, the suspicion in some circles that some aspect of TIA has lived on or been resurrected for the current surveillance program.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation continues to maintain info on its website, here.

Isn't that the program that would have require banks to report to the government all transactions over $10,000 so that the IRS and other agencies could "make sure we all comply"?
 
Stinger said:
Isn't that the program that would have require banks to report to the government all transactions over $10,000 so that the IRS and other agencies could "make sure we all comply"?

Nope. The $10,000 reporting requirement, or Currency Transaction Report (CTR) is a part of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) database. Its original purpose was to help in combating money laundering, mainly by drug dealers, though it is now used to help track money flows to and from organizations identified or suspected of being terrorist affiliated. It is also used by casinos.

The FinCEN purpose, as shown in Wikipedia, is...

"to gather information on the movement of large or suspicious amounts of money, and to increase the communication about that movement to various domestic and international law enforcement agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Customs Service, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

All banks, casinos, brokerage firms, or financial institutions that transfer money must notify FinCEN of any cash transaction over $10,000 in value, as well as any other "suspicious" activity.

An interesting side effect of this is that the FinCEN paperwork - in which a legal name must be given - is being used by casinos to catch some of the higher-volume blackjack card counters."
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stinger
Isn't that the program that would have require banks to report to the government all transactions over $10,000 so that the IRS and other agencies could "make sure we all comply"?


Nope, it was the "Know Your Customer" scheme that I was thinking of, it dawned on my after I hit the send button. It would have turned every bank into a arm of Clinton's Big Brother scheme requiring them to report "suspiscious activity.
 
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