May. 22, 2003 - 22:45 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Alice's Wonderland

Things get curiouser and curiouser as the days go by. Pentagon Poindexter according to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times in an article in the Rocky Mountain News - May 22, 03 entitled, "Poindexter wants to take everything in stride." She points out a few things that should be a worry to all of us I think. She says, "Poindexter, who supervised the strutting Oliver North during the Iran-contra machinations, is now supervising the Pentagon's attempt to create an Orwellian 'virtual, centralized grand data base,' which could put a spyglass on Americans' every move, from literally the way Americans move to their virtual moves, scanning shopping, e-mail, bank deposits, vacations, medical prescriptions, academic grades and trips to the vet. One of the technologies the Pentagon is working on, as the Associated Press' Michael Sniffen reported, is a radar-based device that can identify people by the way they walk for use in a new antiterrorist surveillance system."

M. Dowd says later on in her article, "Researchers who are just beginning to test their method with campus cameras, say it has a labortatory success rate of 90 per cent for identifying people far away by observing their walk -- and not just people who walk as distinctly as Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe or Hannibal Lecter."

Testing it out on campus ? Big Brother Tother spying on campus folk all in the name of science ? Hah, wonder how many campus citizens are now in a file ?

M. Dowd brings up a fact I didn't know yet, she says, "A report demanded by Congress on the Total Information Awareness program (rechristened the Terrorist Information Awareness) was delivered on Tuesday. The part about walks is on Page 10, buried in technical language about "multimodal fusion," "biometric signatures, and "human kinematics." "The goal of this program," it says, "is to identify humans as unique individuals (not necessarily by name) at a distance, at any time of the day or night, during all weather conditions, with noncooperative subjects, possibly disguised and alone or in groups."

M. Dowd early on says, "Not since Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks has a government devoted so much money and study to watching our steps."

Our steps . . . . . . . So to carry on from "-- disguised and alone or in groups." M. Dowd says, "Not quite as colorful as the report of the Ministry of Silly Walks, which had research on the "the Anglo-French Silly Walk (La Marche Futile) and confirmed intelligence reports that the 'Japanese have a man who can bend his leg back over his head and back again at every single step."

End quotes.

Rechristening Total Informations Awarness program to Terrorist Information Awareness program -- what a hoot that is. If something won't fly if it is named as the first was, then switch the game and call it something with Terrorist in the name. Looks to me that between Poindexter and the Patriot Act our considerate government can do everything but monitor what we think and what we say in private, (that is if we are not in an area that is bugged).

I wonder how soon all our cities have webcams on light poles to surveil innocent people on the sidewalk on the off chance a criminal can be spotted. How soon will the "Walk detector be included in the systems ? So it looks that just living right, innocently, living peacefully and totally legally can make us an object of surveillance no matter the justification.

Should I doubt M. Dowd ? Maybe so, not clear on that until someone informs me that she is a "LIBERAL" reporter -- then maybe I should disregard all the other articles I have read touching on the same subject.

Seems that all it takes for our government to do what it wishes is to put a fancy-dancy name on it and go for broke. It worries me, not for mself but for my kids, their kids and their kids kids. And all other people in our country who seem to be in danger of becoming captive and put under mind control of some kind. That is my opinion . . . . .The Wondering Jew reporting from Alice's Wonderland . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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