In the beginning there was Total Information Awareness (TIA), another bad idea from the mind that gave us Iran-Contra, John Poindexter. Having avoided prison by confessing all of his crimes before Congress under a grant of immunity, he was just one of many Reagan retreads who were hired by the Shrubbery for position in excess of their abilities.

Congress was so impressed by what John had created, that they specifically defunded the entire concept in 2003. Silly people that they are, Congress thought that they had killed it.

Almost immediately after the program was defunded, a new program appeared: Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA), that was totally new and different, and had nothing to do with Total Information Awareness … 😈

TIA begat Mainway, Nucleon, Marina, Prism, and a British cousin, Tempora. After Obamacare is implemented they will have access to the electronic medical records that are required, but this isn’t Total Information Awareness because that program was killed by Congress in 2003 … honest.

The latest revelation is about the Xkeystore software, which shows how easy it is for anyone with access to the system to look at all of your information, despite all of the claims about oversight.

Lambert has a link to a CNN video of Piers Morgan, Glenn Greenwald, James Risen, and Jeffrey Toobin discussing Xkeystore that is worth watching.

Without Edward Snowden none of this would have come to light. This is being used to track the Occupy movement and environmental activists, not terrorists. This latest travel warning and terror alert will probably turn out to be nothing more than a distraction.

Digby caught a ‘live one’ from the BBC about British politics:

The Conservative Party has hired Barack Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina for its general election campaign team, BBC Newsnight has learned.

It must be nice for Mr Messine to be able to stop pretending he is a Democrat or progressive and work with people who aren’t hiding their political views.

Froggie Sejant

Burrrrrrrp!

[Editor: Froggie pauses to digest dinner.]

Friday Ark