MIT Website Created for American Public to Inform on US Govt Officials

After 9/11, the US Government launched TIA ( Terrorism Information Awareness), which was originally called Total Information Awareness. It is a $20 million Pentagon project to help sift through electronic information about the American public and others with the aim of "preventing terrorist attack" . The project was developed to bring together information and data from various electronic databases about individuals who are considered potential terrorists.

Pentagon's TIA Concept

The TIA is described as a " domestic snooping plan meant to collect and collate every obtainable scrap of data about everyone in the US population, as betrayed by the name initially given the proposal: Total Information Awareness. It is a chillingly Orwellian departure. "

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION AWARENESS

Two researchers from the MIT Media Lab are turning the table on the US Govt. They have created a website in which information and data about US GOVT Officials can be pooled together for the public's awareness, as well as for the public to post whatever information they have into the website.

A counterpunch to Pentagon's TIA.

The website was launched on July 4th 2003 , to coincide with US Independence Day. They named the website as GOVERNMENT INFORMATION AWARENESS (GIA).

GIA developed by MIT Media Lab is a reverse of the Pentagon's TIA.

The GIA website address is: http://opengov.media.mit.edu

The MIT project aims at collecting and collating

" information about government programs, plans and politicians from the general public and numerous online sources. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 public figures.

The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government. "

Christopher Csikszentmihályi said:

"History shows that when information is concentrated in the hands of an elite, democracy suffers. The writers of the Constitution told us that if people mean to be their own governors, they must arm themselves with information. This project brings that American spirit of self-governance into the era of networked information technology.

If we are to maintain a democracy, it's crucial to ensure accountability. At least as much effort should be spent developing technologies that allows citizens to track their government as for government to monitor civilians."

According to Ryan McKinley, who developed the GIA together with Christopher Csikszentmihályi, assistant professor at MIT:

"Our goal is to develop a technology which empowers citizens to form their own intelligence agency; to gather, sort and act on information they gather about the government. Only by employing such technologies can we hope to have a government by the people and for the people. "

Computers alone cannot monitor the government. While we can aggregate data that already exists, a lot of valuable information is not stored in existing databases, but rather in the collective knowledge of the American citizenry. GIA introduces a way to consolidate and share this knowledge. We've had to solve the problem of how to build a useful, egalitarian and massively scaleable database of sensitive information collected from diverse and unknown sources."

McKinley asked "programmers, political activists from all denominations, lawyers and anyone else " to participate in supporting the GIA .

GIA site users can submit information about public figures and government programs anonymously. The system will automatically contact the appropriate government officials to give them an oppportunity tto confirm or deny information submitted to the website. GIA is "open source" -- the databases it utilizes are openly presented for public perusal and use elsewhere.

Here is the mission statement on the GIA Website:




MIT Media Lab's GIA Concept

Mission

To empower citizens by providing a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of information on individuals, organizations, and corporations related to the government of the United States of America.

To allow citizens to submit intelligence about government-related issues, while maintaining their anonymity. To allow members of the government a chance to participate in the process.

Context

In the United States, there is a widening gap between a citizen's ability to monitor his or her government and the government's ability to monitor a citizen. Average citizens have limited access to important government records, while available information is often illegible. Meanwhile, the government's eagerness and means to oversee a citizen's personal activity is rapidly increasing.

As the government broadens internal surveillance, and collaborates with private institutions to access data on the public, it is crucial that we maintain a symmetry of accountability. If we believe the United States should be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" it is of central importance to provide citizens with the power to oversee their government. At least as much effort should be spent building tools to facilitate citizens supervising their government as tools to help the government monitor individuals.

Technology

The Open Government Information Awareness suite of software tools acts as a framework for US citizens to construct and analyze a comprehensive database on our government. Modeled on recent government programs designed to consolidate information on individuals into massive databases, our system does the opposite, allowing you to scrutinize those in government. Citizens are able to explore data, track events, find patterns, and build risk profiles, all in an effort to encourage and motivate action. We like to think of it as a Citizen’s Intelligence Agency, giving people similar tools and technologies to those held by their government.

Central to GIA is its extensible model of data: Everything in its system is either an entity or a link -- a thing or a relationship. This allows the system to grow in any direction, and accommodate as-yet unimagined institutions, organizations, or threats.
More information is available here.*

Getting Started

The best way to get started is simply by clicking around.

Try looking for your elected representatives, judges in your area, or even your employer. You'll see some of the types of information available. Check back often, as the system grows quickly.

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