Neowin.net

Internet activists have a message for John Poindexter, the head of a controversial Pentagon research project to find terrorists by searching the everyday transactions of Americans: Threaten to invade our privacy, we'll invade yours.

They've plastered Poindexter's email address and home phone number on dozens of web sites, forcing him to block all incoming calls. They've posted satellite images of his suburban Washington house and maps showing how to get there. And they've created online forms to collect even more personal data on him.

"If you are a store clerk, study the photos above. Learn this face. If you are a shipping clerk, study this name," reads a site titled The John Poindexter Awareness Office, a play on Poindexter's Information Awareness Office at the Pentagon. "When and if you see Mr Poindexter purchase something, travel somewhere or do, well, anything - send us a tip describing your observations. We will display the information received right here on this Web site."

It's all an attempt to turn the tables on Poindexter, who is trying to create a vast database of information, from credit card purchases to medical files, and develop software to search it for signs of terrorist activity. The project, called Total Information Awareness, has outraged civil libertarians since it became widely known in November - and spurred some people to do a little database surfing of their own.

"This is sort of a way of making him feel watched in the same way other people would feel watched," said Stephen DeVoy, 40, a computer scientist who created the John Poindexter Awareness Office site.

News source: nzoom - Activists target Pentagon internet information head

Calls to Poindexter's house are now greeted by a phone company "do not disturb" message that says the person is not available. The Pentagon also has removed the resumes of Poindexter and other Information Awareness Office officials from its web site.

Jan Walker, a news officer for the Pentagon's Defence Advance Research Projects Agency, which oversees Poindexter's office, said the web site is periodically revised and would not comment when asked if Poindexter or others have been harassed.

DeVoy said he's not trying to harm Poindexter or other Information Awareness Office officials whose personal information is listed on his site, adding that he has obtained Poindexter's Social Security number but has not posted it because he doesn't want to help identity thieves. DeVoy was employed for a private contractor doing information technology work for the Pentagon until being fired last June, he believes for other web writings critical of US policies.

"My goal is to simply let them know what they are doing affects other people and they should think about the consequences" of Total Information Awareness, DeVoy said.

He's not alone.

Matt Smith, a columnist with S F Weekly, facetiously published Poindexter's phone number and encouraged readers to call. The column quickly circulated around the internet and sparked a flood of responses. John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based electronic privacy group, has published not only Poindexter's home phone number but those of some of his neighbours as well in a column that has been posted on several web sites.

"Some people are suspicious that the... Total Information Awareness system will be used to harass and track the activities of people who some significant fraction of society don't agree with," wrote Gilmore. "It would be good to have an early public demonstration of just how bad life could become for such targeted citizens."

Poindexter makes an inviting target for such a demonstration, said Declan McCullagh, editor of the Politech mailing list, which focuses on politics and technology.

Poindexter was national security adviser to former President Reagan from 1985 to 1986 and was a key figure in the covert plan known as Iran-Contra to trade weapons for Americans held hostage by Iran. He was convicted of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing the congressional inquiry into the affair. His convictions were overturned on appeal because testimony given by Poindexter to Congress under a grant of immunity was unfairly used against him at trial.

McCullagh said the Total Information Awareness project has sparked far more outrage than previous projects with privacy implications, such as the FBI's "Carnivore" Internet surveillance software.

"This anger is manifesting itself in this strange sort of internet activism," McCullagh said. "I think there's a sense of, if you want to watch us then be prepared to be watched yourself."