The Total Information Awareness (TIA) program -- the Bush administration's plan to monitor the nation's digital traffic for possible threats tonational security -- may sound like a massivepreemptive strike against the privacy of everyhousehold in the country. But somehow I can't bringmyself to worry. Maybe it's that oddly reassuringacronym. TIA is Spanish for aunt. Not Big Brotherbut a doting aunt -- that's what TIA could turn out to be. The kind of know-it-all, gossipy aunt who is aninexhaustible source of family secrets your parentstried to keep from you.
If that sounds too literary or romantic, look at thepractical side instead. TIA promises to keep track ofretailers' databases, which could be a great boonfor shoppers. Want to return that itchy sweater toBloomingdale's but can't find the receipt? Don't worry,TIA will have a complete record of your purchases. Especially for us older folks who have trouble keepingtrack of the minutiae of our daily lives, TIA could indeed bea saving grace.
Or say you start telling a joke at the office, butthe punch line suddenly eludes you. Fear not. TIA hasread all your e-mails and can come to the rescue.TIA: the solution to those embarrassing senior moments.
In the same way, TIA could improve your social life.Have trouble attaching names to faces at parties, orremembering your grandchildren's birthdays? TIAknows your friends and relatives in intimate detail.
TIA in short, could function as a kind of surrogate memory for aging baby boomers. Just as ourgeneration's brains begin to falter, TIA's software arrives to pick upthe slack. Its total recall of our slightest impulsescould smooth the path through old age to a serenedeparture from the fully monitored planet.
Of course, in order for TIA to function, totalinformation awareness must be conjoined with totalinformation access, perhaps through some kind ofinexpensive Palm Pilot or digital watch, where youcan read off TIA prompts as easily as you now read thetime of day.
Will this access be forthcoming? Granted, secrecy -- they know all about us, we know zip about them -- doesseem to be the preference of the current administration.Yet a strong historical precedent argues in favor ofoptimism. Just 20 years ago, the same governmentorganization -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- now charged with developing TIA was experimenting with ways to keep thegovernment running in the event of nuclear war. The solution it came up with in 1983 was a network of 400 computers capable of communicating among themselves. Within a mere decade, that secret Cold War experiment had blossomed into the fruitfulpublic chaos of the Internet. If history repeats itself, we have nothing to fear from TIA.
To hasten this salutary evolution, however, Congressneeds to act now. First, DARPA should be folded into theAARP. Second, TIA's motto -- the sinister yet banal"scientia est potentia" -- should be scrapped in favor ofthe more accurate and reassuring "senilitas delendaest." If your Latin is rusty, you can find atranslation with the aid of a crude TIA precursoralready in wide use: It's called Google.
Suzanne Ruta is a social and literary critic and theauthor of Stalin in the Bronx and Other Stories.
