As noted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, this all but meaningless decree issued by Congress did not “necessarily signal the end of other government data-mining initiatives that are similar to TIA. Projects such as the Novel Intelligence from Massive Data within the Intelligence Community Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) will apparently move forward. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are also working on data-mining projects that will fuse commercial databases, public databases, and intelligence data and had meetings with TIA developers.”

And move forward in a big way, as we now understand (and considering the sordid history of the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, NSA, and sundry other spook agencies, we should have understood well before the current scandal). “Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” writes Doug Thompson for Capitol Hill Blue. “It’s a total effort to build dossiers on as many Americans as possible,” a former NSA agent “who quit in disgust over use of the agency to spy on Americans” told Thompson. “We’re no longer in the business of tracking our enemies. We’re spying on everyday Americans.” In short, a massive and all-encompassing spook apparatus—the distinction of all totalitarian states (think East Germany’s Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or Stasi)—has taken root here in America, a country that once prided itself on a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, now doormats for the Straussian neocons and their slimebucket neolib confederates to wipe their blood-stained shoes on as they enter the “the People’s House,” now little more than a brothel and a rogue’s gallery.

As for Poindexter’s TIA:

Although supposedly killed by Congress more than 18 months ago, the Defense Advance Project Research Agency’s Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) system, formerly called the “Total Information Awareness” program, is alive and well and collecting data in real time on Americans at a computer center located at 3801 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia.

The system, set up by retired admiral John Poindexter, once convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, compiles financial, travel and other data on the day-to-day activities of Americans and then runs that data through a computer model to look for patterns that the agency deems “terrorist-related behavior.”

Poindexter admits the program was quietly moved into the Pentagon’s “black bag” program where it does escapes Congressional oversight.

Of course, the Pentagon and the spook monolith are not interested in the “day-to-day activities” of the vast majority of most Americans, most who have “nothing to hide” (as more than a few witless Americans have told me over the years; for background on this attitude, see Americans split on feds listening in), but rather political enemies of the neocons and their fellow travelers ensconced in the White House and the Department of Forever War. “The Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and writers opposed to the war in Iraq. Pentagon officials now claim they are ‘reviewing the files’ to see if the information is necessary to the ‘war on terrorism,’” Thompson writes. In other words, the war on our civil liberties—especially the civil liberties of those of us considered a “threat” to the Bushcons and Company (and in Bushzarro world, it is a threat to practice the First Amendment and hold up an anti-Bush sign in public).

“Given the power granted to the office of the presidency and the unaccountability of the intelligence agencies, widespread illegal domestic operations are certain,” warns Verne Lyon, a former CIA undercover operative. In fact, the snoops were unleashed a long time ago, explains Richard Polenberg, professor of history at Cornell University. “The era of the First World War witnessed several fundamental changes in the role of the American federal government. Not the least of these was the use of military services as a counter-force against disaffected elements of the civilian population—particularly against radical labor organizers and leftist intellectuals. This development had long-lasting consequences, beginning a tradition that continued, with few lapses, through the Second World War and beyond.”

“The public exposure of COINTELPRO and other government abuses resulted in a flurry of apparent reform in the 1970s, but domestic covert action did not end. It has persisted, and seems a permanent feature of our government. Much of today’s domestic covert action can also be kept concealed because of government secrecy that has been restored,” note Mike Cassidy and Will Miller.

Much of what was done outside the law under COINTELPRO was later legalized by Executive Order 12333 (12/4/81). There is every reason to believe that even what was not legalized is still going on as well. Lest we forget, Lt. Col. Oliver North funded and orchestrated from the White House basement break-ins and other “dirty tricks” to defeat congressional critics of U.S. policy in Central America and to neutralize grassroots protest. Special Prosecutor Walsh found evidence that North and Richard Secord (architect of the 1960s covert actions in Cambodia) used Iran-Contra funds to harass the Christic Institute, a church-funded public interest group specializing in exposing government misconduct.

North also helped other administration officials at the Federal Emergency Management Administration develop contingency plans for suspending the Constitution, establishing martial law, and holding political dissidents in concentration camps in the event of “national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad.” There were reports of similar activities and preparations in response to the opposition to the Gulf War in 1991. Even today, there is pending litigation against the FBI involving alleged misconduct in connection with the near-fatal bombing of Judi Bari.

Bush—or rather, since Bush is an enfeebled cardboard cut-out of a president, the Straussian-Machiavellian neocons—are simply using well-established tools in an all-out effort to destroy what remains of the Constitution, a prerequisite for the sort of total war they envision first against Islam (in the name of the Jabotinsky Zionists in Israel) and then against all comers who would question or challenge U.S.-corporate hegemony. It is certainly no mistake the shakers and movers of the Bushcon administration are former Iran-Contra alumni, well-versed in the methods and means of totalitarianism.

Increasingly, it is appropriate to characterize the Bushcon spy operation as an all-American version of Stasi (Staats Sicherheitsdienst), the feared East German secret police. As it turns out, the neocon Stasi engaged in spook activity not only against American citizens, but government bureaucrats and fellow spooks as well. “NSA spied on its own employees, other U.S. intelligence personnel, and their journalist and congressional contacts,” reports Wayne Madsen. “WMR has learned that the National Security Agency (NSA), on the orders of the Bush administration, eavesdropped on the private conversations and e-mail of its own employees, employees of other U.S. intelligence agencies—including the CIA and DIA—and their contacts in the media, Congress, and oversight agencies and offices,” behavior fitting of the Committee for State Security, or the Soviet era KGB, responsible for the liquidation of anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary organizations.

As Madsen writes, neocon political hack Porter Goss has his job cut-out for him. “The journalist surveillance program, code named ‘Firstfruits,’ was part of a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) program that was maintained at least until October 2004 and was authorized by then-DCI Porter Goss. Firstfruits was authorized as part of a DCI ‘Countering Denial and Deception’ program responsible to an entity known as the Foreign Denial and Deception Committee (FDDC). Since the intelligence community’s reorganization, the DCI has been replaced by the Director of National Intelligence headed by John Negroponte and his deputy, former NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden.”

It should be noted that Negroponte ran death squad operations in Nicaragua and supported the brutal military dictatorship of General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez in Honduras. Even though he was implicated in the Iran-Contra criminal operation, the Senate had no problem confirming Negroponte to “serve” as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Obviously, the Senate figured Negroponte’s Curriculum Vitae as a criminal and overseer of death squads was an asset in Iraq. Now this facilitator of sadistic butchery will be monitoring the behavior of the American public and running “denial and deception” operations (and the primary “denial” will be denying Americans their birthright—protection under the Constitution and Bill of Rights).

Some may believe my characterization of the neocon spook operation as an all-American version of Stasi is erroneous. However, all one need do is consider the rumor Markus Wolf, the former director of the East German Stasi, “was being considered for the top post at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” according to the Idaho Observer. “The rumor caused such a stir that the Bush administration chose Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Michael Chertoff to replace outgoing Tom Ridge as Director of Homeland Security,” not that Chertoff is an advocate for civil liberties and the Constitution. It should be noted that Chertoff “is a longtime member and activist in the Federalist Society,” according to Right Web. “The Federalist Society, which since its founding in 1982 has been closely linked to the neoconservative political camp, aims to rid the system of liberal judges and stamp out what it sees are its overly egalitarian and secular impulses. Many association members believe that the Constitution and the country’s laws should primarily serve to ensure order and social orthodoxy rather than democracy and human rights.” In other words, get rid of the “egalitarian” concepts of the Constitution, as in equality under the law, as stated by the 14th Amendment (the Straussian- Machiavellian version of reality dictates that some people have more liberty than others, viz.: the Platonic neocons, acting as philosopher-kings, have the right to run roughshod over the benighted masses and use them as cannon fodder in their forever war schemes).

It should also be noted that Chertoff “supervised the round-up of 750 Arabs and other Muslims on suspicion of immigration violations. Treated as suspected terrorist sympathizers or material witnesses, the ’suspects’ were held without bond for as long as three months, often in solitary confinement, despite having never been charged with any crime,” a precursor of things to come for American citizens (and in fact a number of the Muslims rounded up in Gestapo-like raids were American citizens, albeit Muslim American citizens). Of course, the neocon Stasi apparatus now emerging is connected at the hip to this Gestapo-like behavior—the neocons and their apparatchiks need to assemble dossiers on “traitors,” be they journalists, fellow spooks not with the program, or peace activists and members of the growing patriot movement. It is especially pertinent to consider Chertoff’s remarks (made in a War Street Journal op-ed piece) in regard to the lawfulness of rounding up people in the dead of night and snooping on law-abiding Americans: “Basic policy questions like this cannot be simply left to the judiciary.” Of course, it hardly matters that the judiciary, by and large, is a Reagan-Bush deck stacked with reactionaries.

Finally, if we are to believe Rasmussen Reports, a clear majority of Americans have no problem with snooping on journalists and fellow citizens in egregious violation of the Constitution. “Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans believe the NSA should be allowed to listen in on conversations between terror suspects and people living in the United States. That view is shared by 51% of Democrats and 57% of those not affiliated with either major political party,” Rasmussen Reports notes. Meanwhile, concentration camp advocate Michelle Malkin applauds this rampant ignorance of the Constitution, and “Don Lambro at the Washington Times reports that ’some Centrist Democrats’ (whoever they are) are worried that ‘attacks by their party leaders on the Bush administration’s eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations will further weaken the party’s credibility on national security,’” according to the National Ledger. Of course, the above mentioned “suspected terrorists” are not members of al-CIA-duh but rather Americans practicing their once guaranteed civil liberties, as the example of history (i.e., Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO) repeatedly demonstrates.