AND TELESCREENS TO BE INSTALLED IN LATE 2003

WASHINGTON — A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Edward Aldridge, undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, told reporters that the Pentagon is developing a prototype database to seek "patterns indicative of terrorist activity." Aldridge said the database would collect and use software to analyze consumer purchases in hopes of catching terrorists before it's too late.

"The bottom line is this is an important research project to determine the feasibility of using certain transactions and events to discover and respond to terrorists before they act," he said.

Aldridge said the database, which he called another "tool" in the war on terror, would look for telltale signs of suspicious consumer behavior. (full story)

I hope no conservatives are suprised by this. The Bushies have been shredding civil liberties for quite a while now.

What's really gonna get some conservatives' undies in a bunch is this line:

Examples he cited were: sudden and large cash withdrawals, one-way air or rail travel, rental car transactions and purchases of firearms, chemicals or agents that could be used to produce biological or chemical weapons. (emphasis mine)

Well kiss my cousin, how can they do that? Surely a gun has absolutely nothing to do with potential violence! Well, expect the "cold dead hands" crowd to throw a fit.

What makes it even worse is that this database is being developed by Reaganite and convicted felon John Poindexter. This is why conservatives are so entertaining. They'll go on and on about how homosexuals in government and military are "more vulnerable to blackmail", and then they'll hire a guy like Poindexter to oversee this kind of information. Sheesh.

It's Bush and Cheney's world, we're just being monitored in it.

We'll do something about that in 23 and a half months. If they haven't cancelled elections by then.