Information Awareness Office (IAO): How's This for Paranoid?

- © Terry Melanson (July 22nd, 2002); Last Update (Apr. 28th, 2005)

While looking over my server logs today, I came across a blogger post about DARPA's Information Awareness Office. For those who don't know, this new DARPA agency was established in January to provide the U.S. with "total information awareness" in the wake of 9/11. Utilizing the full capabilities of Echelon technology and a sister organization called the Information Exploitation Office, the US foreign and domestic spying capabilities are akin to an "All-Seeing-Eye". In February the Guardian ran a story which said, "Think, Big Brother is Watching You. IAO will supply federal officials with 'instant' analysis on what is being written on email and said on phones all over the U.S. Domestic espionage. You want to test it out? Text-message any American friend, 'Bmb OK. Allah gr8'."

Well it seems that this super-spy agency wants to live up to its Big Brother label. So much so, that it has officially adopted the Illuminati Seal as its own. I joke not! Here is what Rev. Gregory Markle , who discovered this, had to say:

“In its continuing efforts to tighten security in our country, the government has been reorganizing its resources in many ways - none more frightening than the creation of The Office of Information Awareness. I'd love to believe this is a joke but it is housed on the DARPA website. I mean, please, how do you accomplish your stated goal of countering terrorism when you place the following on your website.. the most serious asymmetric threat facing the United States is terrorism, a threat characterized by collections of people loosely organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define. ...and then create a logo for your new program which is bound to send certain conspiracy theorists into fits using the " All Seeing Eye" so often associated with the Illuminati. That should make the fine folks over at Conspiracy Archive and their ilk, who are more numerous than I wish to think about, sleep better at night. I can't believe some bunch of government boobs sat down and said, "Let's utilize the symbol of a 'shadowy network that is difficult to identify and define' " for our logo. An organization that not only already enrages a small segment of the population but which has, presumably, ties among three other "shadowy" groups such as the Freemasons, the Order of Jesuits and a radical Islamic sect (founded in what is now modern day Afghanistan no less!) And, on top of all of this, to give it the acronym "I.A.O." was a stroke of genius - why knot it into some of the basics of Aleister Crowley's mysticism to just cap off what was already a splendid peace of work. Here's a nice (if not a bit long) article tying all of these diverse bits of insanity together. It's at times like this when I truly question my choices of reading material in the past 30 years when I can look at a logo like this and have thoughts like these cruising through my head. I've always treated this stuff with a grain of salt but it's hard to look at this a laugh the more I think about it. We truly are unsafe wherever we go.”

I guess it can't get any more blatant than this. Besides Illuminati symbolism and Crowleyan acronyms, another project with occult overtones includes the Babylon program. More sinister projects include Human Identification at a Distance (HumanID) and the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. According to its site, the Information Awareness Office has a scope of intelligence which includes:

Biometric signatures of humans Face Fingerprints Gait Iris Speech recognition

Transactional Spying Financial Education Travel Medical Veterinary County Entry Place/Event Entry Transportation Housing Critical Resources Government Communications

Cognitive aids that allow humans and machines to “think together” in real-time about complicated problems

that allow humans and machines to “think together” in real-time about complicated problems Cognitive amplifiers that help teams of people rapidly and fully comprehend complicated and uncertain situations

In IAO's Total Information Awareness System the goal is to detect, ID, classify and track potential anti-government targets through multi-agency OPs. The program is an ongoing research project designed to acquire data through advanced technological applications for surveillance.

The All-Seeing-Eye in IAO's logo is watching, listening, and tracking the whole globe. Judging by their stated areas of research, I think the plan is to marry ' psychic spying' with Echelon technology - thus the use of a recognized occult symbol for a logo. How's that for your tax dollars at work?

IAO got its first director on February 13, 2002, the "unscrupulous" John Poindexter. The former National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan was convicted of conspiracy, lying to congress, destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal, defrauding America and has been accused of cocaine smuggling by Costa Rican government (according to the Guardian).

Poindexter had already been working for years with DARPA to develop Genoa, an intelligence mining, and information harvesting system. Basically it is designed to listen in on our electronic conversations. The Information Awareness Office employs Poindexter's Genoa and an advanced version called Genoa II.

You can be sure that he authorized the logo in order to thumb his nose at congress and give them a little reminder of just how much power Bush has really given him. Since Poindexter had his convictions overturned in 1990 (in exchange for testimony), Dubya feels the American public need not worry that such a man is at the helm of America's new surveillance behemoth. I guess he figures that conspiring against the American public (again) is above the character of Mr. Poindexter. Mr. Skull & Bones thinks you should have faith in your new Big Brother. The All-Seeing-Eye is protecting you.

Epilogue

Since I first wrote this article in 2002, the Information Awareness Office, and presumably all its appendages, have been discontinued through a Legislative act by the Congress. See this article at Wikipedia for all the details.

Similar types of state-sponsored civilian spying continue unabated. Programs like the MATRIX (Multistate Antiterrorism Information Exchange), for instance, have continued to stir controversy.