EOTO Terms & Concepts: Total Information

Blog Post #10

Total Information 

The Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) pulls as much information as possible about as many people as it can into an “ultra-large-scale” database, making the information available to government officials, to identify terrorists.  The TIA was used as a mass detection program. From February to May 2003 it operated under the name Total Information Awareness and then it was renamed Terrorism Information Awareness.

The TIA was run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. This is a branch of the Department of Defense that works on military research. John Poindexter is the leader. Poindexter is the former National Security adviser who was caught up in scandals and famously said that it was his duty to withhold information from congress. 

How might it affect society? 

This is obviously a radical and frightening thing for everyone. The government was basically seeking to access private information about you and those around you. The TIA affects ALL segments. It does not matter if you are rich, poor, male, female, gay, straight, etc. The TIA will search for information on every single person no matter the segmentation. The TIA can incorporate government records, medical records, financial records, political beliefs, travel history, buying habits, communications (phone calls, emails, web history), school records, personal and family background, etc. There has been a large amount of information tracking of individuals in the US due to Technology and The commercialization of data. 

Computers, cameras, location sensors, and other technology makes it extremely easy to track and analyze data and information about people and what they are doing. One article stated, “consumers are increasingly being asked for their information everywhere they turn, from product registration forms to loyalty programs to sweepstakes entry forms.” The government has been said to be a  primary source for the TIA database. 

The TIA claims that it was made to identify, classify, and detect terrorists, but quite frankly if you do not know who the terrorists are, you must search and observe the activities and lives of every single person. 

What is the problem? 

The main problems of Total Information are it could kill privacy, it is a potential for abuse, it is based on virtual dragnets, and it fails the balancing test. This program makes our lives completely available to the government. The motto of the TIA is "knowledge is power". The database of the TIA gains an abundant amount of power of the citizens. One example from ACLU stated "An example of the kind of abuses that can happen was chronicled in a July 2001 investigation by the Detroit Free Press (and December 2001 followup): the newspaper found that police officers with access to a database for Michigan law enforcement had used it to help their friends or themselves stalk women, threaten motorists, track estranged spouses - even to intimidate political opponents. "  The government can use real citizens' surveillance and use it against them. The TIA is a great example of ruining the American values that our government portrays to have. 

Although the TIA is not in use anymore, the US never really ended the Total Information Awareness Program.