TIA and Google

by phil on Monday Mar 31, 2003 9:01 AM
Google, privacy

How Total Information Awareness will dupe Google - "TIA promises search engines that will consign Google to the Stone Age. TIA's dialog technology will listen to your words, then link you to a trove of data that makes today's Web look like the library of an illiterate."
a) scary.
b) what's the problem people have with Total Information Awareness anyways? Religion, political correctness, punishment of the outspoken, and a general desire to be "liked" have already put a "filter" on acceptable and appropriate thinking.
c) do I really think that the government could match Google? Based on the government's fubaring of a simple Dungeons and Dragons war game I somewhat question their ability to trump Google. And if other companies, like Microsoft and Yahoo! can't surpass Google, how could the US government.
d) this is just like the RIAA touting "PressPlay" to win the war on "Internet-terrorism" i.e. music piracy.
e) by the time they finish a system that scans e-mails and what not, there'll be new systems of communication that'll be unbounded, secure chat, anonymous blogging, the matrix?
f) by the nature of the reaction within this article, I get a feeling a lot of people will be pissed off. It seems too challenging for a right-wing press-mongering machine to write an opposite story. "Look America, we're all going to be safer now!" Plus, if enough people are pissed off, all we need is the next voting cycle to change everything.
g) yet, by the very nature of my litany of doubts on the US government, after a few self-fulfilling prophecies later, I could end up being sooo wrong.
h) nonetheless, I'm always impressed by man's ability to accept things the "way they are." If such a system were proposed by Bush, "for the good of the United States, mankind,
God's will on this very Earth, and an end to (brown) evil doers, we must sacrifice," the future will still be gay, but it will be gay within a sandbox. I and you already live in a sandbox by the very nature of needing things to survive in this world, so that's not that big of a deal. Plus, I know people who have told me that, "I wouldn't mind livin without control as long as I'm happy." hrmph.
i) so, on the balance, I'm vaguely against this TIA thing, in which case, I take solace in a thing that Americans lack: a fear of the use of violence. Piss off Americans, and they will fire.