Big Brother just got bigger.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70992,00.html

WASHINGTON — A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

I know, I know..."if you're not doing anything wrong...."

EDIT: I'd post this in the new "Thoughtful and Intelligent" forum but I have a feeling this isn't going to be either......

If you look at the date on that report it`s from 2002 so I would imagine that its been up & running for awhile now so watch how much ammo you buy.

I remember this from back in the day, specifically the name of the guy in charge of it, Poindexter.

There's more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness_Program

As a whole the program was defunded in 2003 after the public and civlib groups pressured to end it for fear of where it was heading, in particular the aspect of the overall program that was focused on using public and private information databases to ferret out suspected terrorists.

Several of the sub-projects under this umbrella program found new live under different agencies and programs. For instance the Babylon project was continued through alternate funding and has led to near real-time translation devices in field trials with our troops in Iraq.

pvolcko wrote:8<....As a whole the program was defunded in 2003 after the public and civlib groups pressured to end it for fear of where it was heading, in particular the aspect of the overall program that was focused on using public and private information databases to ferret out suspected terrorists.

Several of the sub-projects under this umbrella program found new live under different agencies and programs...<8

Recal that new office from that era destined to handle dissemination of manipulative information, now called The Department of Strategic Baking ...

I don't think for a second the government gives up that easily. All they have to do is transfer it to a "black" budget and it's SOP.