Up to now, it has been illegal for federal agencies like the FBI, the CIA, the IRS or the Immigration and Naturalization Service to share data under most circumstances. The Homeland Security Act tears down those walls, creating, in SARPA, a centralized office with unprecedented powers to link government and commercial databases, using a technique known as data mining.
SARPA will make use of methods developed by the Pentagon’s Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, which has already begun research on the prototype for what it calls “a virtual, centralized grand database.”
The identity of the official in charge of this $200 million Pentagon effort is itself highly significant: retired Admiral John Poindexter, the national security adviser in the Reagan administration who was convicted of five criminal counts in the Iran-Contra affair, including lying to Congress. Poindexter’s convictions were overturned on appeal and he was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, the current president’s father.
A man already convicted as a principal organizer of Reagan’s secret war in Central America, organized behind the backs of the American people and in defiance of explicit congressional prohibition, is now engaged in developing a vital instrument of authoritarian rule within the United States.
SARPA will make use of methods developed by the Pentagon’s Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, which has already begun research on the prototype for what it calls “a virtual, centralized grand database.”
The identity of the official in charge of this $200 million Pentagon effort is itself highly significant: retired Admiral John Poindexter, the national security adviser in the Reagan administration who was convicted of five criminal counts in the Iran-Contra affair, including lying to Congress. Poindexter’s convictions were overturned on appeal and he was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, the current president’s father.
A man already convicted as a principal organizer of Reagan’s secret war in Central America, organized behind the backs of the American people and in defiance of explicit congressional prohibition, is now engaged in developing a vital instrument of authoritarian rule within the United States.