...bringing the government closer than ever to implementing the “Total Information Awareness” system first dreamed up by the Pentagon in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Office of Information Awareness already exists, it was set up in 2002 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), after much public criticism that these technologies and their implementation could potentially be used to set up a mass surveillance system, the agencys funding was removed by Congress in 2003, since which time it has continued, and is now receiving funding from unknown sources.

(pl)