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A Two-Way Street of Total Information Awareness

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Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity

Abstract

In January 2008, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright wrote in The New Yorker an in-depth article about the U.S. intelligence community focusing on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the necessity for interagency communications — something that Total Information Awareness (TIA) was meant to facilitate. Wright observed that “the fantasy worlds that Disney creates have a surprising amount in common with the ideal universe envisaged by the intelligence community, in which environments are carefully controlled and people are closely observed, and no one seems to mind” [1].

The two-way street of Total Information Awareness is the road that leads to a more transparent and complete picture of ourselves, our governments, and our world.

—Newton Lee

The fantasy worlds that Disney creates have a surprising amount in common with the ideal universe envisaged by the intelligence community, in which environments are carefully controlled and people are closely observed, and no one seems to mind.

—Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker

(January 21, 2008)

Our job as citizens is to ask questions.

— Thomas Blanton , National Security Archive

George Washington University (December 16, 2010)

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Lee, N. (2015). A Two-Way Street of Total Information Awareness. In: Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17244-6_8

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