IDEAS THAT MATTERED IN 2003: 9. No future for terror market

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28 December 2003
The Atlanta Journal - Constitution
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John Poindexter in 2003 had to resign from his second administration --- 
this time for trying to build Big Brother with your tax dollars.

Poindexter, bounced from the Reagan administration for his role in the 
Iran-Contra scandal, made his way back into government by pitching a 
computerized surveillance experiment called Total Information Awareness.

The admiral went to work for the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, 
seeking to create a "virtual, centralized, grand database" that would house 
oceans of data on just about everybody. It would then search those oceans 
for patterns of behavior that suggested criminal or terrorist intent.

Pete Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and 
logistics, said in late 2002 that the TIA database would troll for 
"connections between transactions --- such as passports, visas, work 
permits, driver's licenses, credit cards, airline tickets, rental cars, gun 
purchases, chemical purchases and events --- such as arrest or suspicious 
activities and so forth."

Then it developed that TIA might also track "biometrics" --- fingerprints, 
retinal scans, facial shapes, even the way people walk. New York Times 
columnist Maureen Dowd called it "Gait-gate." Faced with dreadful publicity, 
TIA got a new name, sort of: "Total" became "Terror."

But what sent Poindexter packing was the revelation that his Information 
Awareness Office at DARPA was cooking up the Policy Analysis Market, also 
known as the "Terror Futures Market."

The idea was that investors would put money on certain events; the higher 
the price, the more likely the event. Many of these events would be 
relatively benign. But others included political assassinations in the 
Middle East or terrorist attacks.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) condemned PAM --- "The idea of a federal betting 
parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," said 
Wyden --- and the terror futures market quickly died.

But not everyone was happy to see it go. Said Wired.com: "Proponents of 
'idea markets' say PAM's quicksilver cancellation will rob the country's 
intelligence agencies of a tool with a strong history of accurately 
predicting future events." Photo mug of John Poindexter

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