Are any of you as pissed off as i am about the lack of factual reporting on the "scandal involving electronic spying on Americans?"  Is there no societal recollection on dear old Admiral Poindexter?  Is there no one in the US who even remembers the man?  Does the term "Total Information Awareness (TAO)" mean anything to anyone?  Good gawd people, have we succombed so far that  a single human being has been at the crux of this entire nightmare?  Even Wikipedia knows the person behind this quagmire:

Poindexter served as the Director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO). The mission of the IAO was to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components, and prototype closed-loop information systems. This aimed to counter asymmetric threats (most notably, terrorist threats) by achieving total information awareness and thus aiding preemption; national security warning; and, national security decision making. 

He not only created the collection and analysis of all the data, but then went on to actually put a massive free enterprise spin on the process:

Poindexter faced criticism from the media and some politicians about the Policy Analysis Market project, a theoretical prediction market that would have rewarded participants for accurately predicting geopolitical trends in the Middle East. This was portrayed in the media as allowing participants to profit from the assassination of heads of state and acts of terrorism due to such events being mentioned on illustrative sample screens showing the interface. The controversy over the proposed futures market led to a Congressional audit of the IAO in general, which revealed a fundamental lack of concern for privacy protection of American citizens.

Perhaps you need to read that paragraph again, while keeping in mind that the same person was indicted on numerous accounts of constitutional ignoring during the Reagan/Bush years, resulting from the Iran/Contra madness.  One man with a vision, and an incredible talent for computer programming, created the gianormous mess we are stunned to find out has been going on for nearly 12 years.  If any of you remember Peabody and Sherman from the 60s, then the name Poindexter became synonmous with geek and nerd.  And yet, an actual human being creating a matrix of computer programming, led the US to become the single largest scale collector of data (information) than all of science and knowledge before that.   Wow, know one seems to remember.  Well done, John.