Total Information Awareness

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Intelligence agencies want faster, easier access to e-mail, telephone logs, and financial records-including yours. It's all in the name of Homeland Security. The Pentagon is working on the world's most advanced information system that will be able to sift through enormous volumes of government and commercial databases. It would scan drivers-license and passport applications, school records, bank statements, divorce decrees and complaints from nosy neighbors. On an archived "To the Point," will avoiding another September 11th require an unprecedented sacrifice of personal privacy? Do intelligence agents need to know everything? What's wrong with that-if you've got nothing to hide?
  • Newsmaker: America and Others Stepping Up the Pressure on Iraqi's Illegal Oil Flow
    Under UN sanctions, Iraq is supposed to sell just enough oil to provide funds for food and medicine. But, Iraqi smugglers have been running the UN blockade. The New York Times reports that U.S. forces have all but shut off that flow of Iraqi oil, with help from Australia and-possibly-even Iran. A few weeks back, we spoke with Michael Gordon of the New York Times.
  • Reporter's Notebook: Glacier National Park is melting
    Glacier National Park is in Northwestern Montana-accessible, in all its Alpine magnificence, not just to tourists but to scientists as well. Dan Faygree is an ecologist, who leads a US Geological Survey that is racing against time.

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Warren Olney