Washington diary.

30 August 2003
New Scientist

Andreas Frew on trading in terror futures, and the making of an 
environmentally friendly president

PRIVACY advocates were among those celebrating the departure this month of 
the holder of an obscure government office, John Poindexter.

A retired admiral, Poindexter was appointed by President Bush as a senior 
policy maker at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the 
best-known scientific arm of the Department of Defense. There he created the 
Total Information Awareness Program, which among much else sought to 
consolidate government databases and develop software to search them more 
efficiently. It seemed sensible, except for the worry that the government 
already knows too much. Would the next step be a security camera in your 
bedroom?

Poindexter had a past as a player in Ronald Reagan's illegal effort to raise 
money for Central American insurgency by selling arms to Iran. Members of 
Congress accused him of being too "economical with the truth" about his 
role. When reincarnated at DARPA, Poindexter hatched a plan to open a market 
in "terror futures" - smart folks would bet on where the next attack might 
come and thus give intelligence agents fresh ideas. This plan struck members 
of Congress as ghoulish and unworkable. They demanded his speedy exit and 
they got it.

But Total Information Awareness lives on. At the Office of Naval Research, 
engineers are studying the use of blimps to watch America. Sophisticated 
cameras hovering overhead could catch terrorists or drug dealers. Perhaps 
they will name the flagship the Poindexter. DESPITE his objections to 
imposing restrictions on fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicles, despite his 
rejection of the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse gases, and despite his 
interest in opening up a designated wilderness area in Alaska to oil 
drilling, President Bush would still like to be known as an environmentally 
friendly president. Not surprising really. What president would want to be 
known as the one who hastened global warming and killed off the Alaskan 
caribou?

So how do you build a positive image when professional environmental groups 
have already tagged you as public enemy number one? Well, one strategy is to 
make sure the federal agencies who act as watchdogs of the environment are 
headed by people who can "talk a good game". Bush seems to have employed 
that strategy by appointing Utah governor Mike Leavitt to head the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

By his own account, Leavitt is a man who cares deeply about the environment. 
A trip to the Grand Canyon as a youth made him a lifelong defender of that 
natural wonder. He brokered an agreement among 13 states, environmentalists 
and businesses to cut air pollution there, making him a hero to some.

Environmentalist or not, Leavitt is clearly a savvy politico and a smooth 
talker to boot. His main job will be to ensure everyone hears about the 
EPA's efforts on behalf of pretty flowers and babies, and distract attention 
from policies that appear to benefit big business.