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HAL T WO / NSA'S NEW THOUGHT POLICE
The NSA would essentially like to create the spy-agency equivalent of "HAL 9000," the computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that converses with the astronaut David Bowman (played by Keir Dullea, above).
Remember that famous scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL, the master brain computer, would not let Dave back in the spacecraft, for fear that he would endanger the secret embedded mission, and Dave got in through the emergency port and began to dismantle Hal while Hal protested ~ Well, prepare yourself for the two new NSA systems that are designed to read peoples minds ~ as Hal read Dave's mind and lips in that outstanding and prophetic movie.
Here is that classic seven minute segment along with HAL singing Daisy as he lost power ~ as well as an article on NSA's new Thought Police.
Dailymotion - 2001 A Space Odyssey - Hal 9000 part 2, a video from ...  www.dailymotion.com/video/x4gr3z_2001-a-space-odyssey-hal-9000-part_tech - 47k -
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/02/06.html
The New Thought Police:The NSA Wants to Know How You Think ~ Maybe Even What You Think
by James Bamford http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/police.html
EXCERPTS:
Building "Hal"
" The original goal of Aquaint, which dates back to the 1990s, was simply to develop a sophisticated method of picking the right needles out of a vast haystack of information and coming up with the answer to a question. As with TIA, many universities were invited to contribute brainpower to the project. But in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, with the creation of the NSA's secret warrantless eavesdropping program and the buildup of massive databases, the project began taking on a more urgent tone ... "The technology behaves like a robot, understanding and answering complex questions," said a former Aquaint researcher. "Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL." A naturalized U.S. citizen who received her Ph.D. from Columbia, the researcher worked on the program for several years but eventually left due to moral concerns. "The system can answer the question, 'What does X think about Y?'" she said. "Working for the government is great, but I don't like looking into other people's secrets. I am interested in helping people and helping physicians and patients for the quality of people's lives." The researcher now focuses on developing similar search techniques for the medical community.
Thought policeman
A super smart search engine, capable of answering complex questions such as "What were the major issues in the last 10 presidential elections?" would be very useful for the public. But that same capability in the hands of an agency like the NSA ~ absolutely secret, often above the law, resistant to oversight, and with access to petabytes of private information about Americans ~ could be a privacy and civil liberties nightmare. "We must not forget that the ultimate goal is to transfer research results into operational use," said Aquaint project leader John Prange, in charge of information exploitation for IARPA. "
In George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, a civil servant named Winston Smith (played in the 1955 movie by Edmond O'Brien, above) loses all privacy as Big Brother and his Thought Police bring him under constant surveillance. Is the NSA today's Big Brother?
Let's hope we don't have to eventually dismantle HAL Two for going to the dark side of public control and manipulation.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/02/06.html
Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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