The Short Life, Public Execution and Resurrection of John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness

Was it an Orwellian nightmare or an intelligence savior? John Poindexter says TIA was sucked into a vortex of politics and knee-jerk foolishness before anyone could answer that question.

Ironically, Poindexter argues, the politicization of TIA led to an even worse scenario for privacy advocates than what they had before; now, because much of the work is classified, there won't be any public discussion.

"The defense appropriations bill, which is unclassified, says that we're going to close down the Information Awareness Office, we're going to close down TIA. But, oh, by the way, some of the parts of TIA are not controversial, [and] we're going to move them into the classified annex of the budget. And where they are moved is classified. Exactly what they do is classified.

"However, I can tell you that PARC, which had a major [TIA-related] contract on privacy protection, has publicly acknowledged that their contract has ended. So, what Congress has done is that they've stopped the research in the privacy protection area. And, in my opinion, that eventually is going to be a problem for the administration.

"The privacy work was part of what was canceled. But I think it should continue. And I think that eventually it will be continued. I'm an optimist."