Scary civil-rights issue: Like many Minnesotans, I have a love-hate (or maybe a like-dislike) mixed bag of feelings about our state's Attorney General, Mike Hatch, who is both a staunch defender of the law and a shameless publicity hound. However, on this issue I am right along with him: he opposes the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project, a purportedly anti-terrorism program that is about as frightening as they get. Here's the crux of the issue, in a quote from Hatch:

"I think the concern [of public officials] is that any concern they express on a Bush initiative may be seen as anti-American," Hatch said. "Still, I'm surprised there aren't more people speaking out. This isn't a Democrat or Republican issue. It crosses all lines and becomes the ultimate civil-rights issue."

Why aren't more people up in arms about this? This sends chills down my spine.

And that isn't the worst of it: Upon researching the Total Information Awareness project, I came upon a list of all of the activities of the Information Awareness Office, run by John Poindexter -- yes, that John Poindexter, from the Iran-Contra fiasco (and if you want some interesting short reading, start at the Concluding Observations portion of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's report on Iran-Contra). Among the list of projects that the TIA is working on, there is something called the Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD) program, from which I will quote one of the most chilling aspects:

The goal of the Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD) program is development of technologies and tools for automated discovery, extraction and linking of sparse evidence contained in large amounts of classified and unclassified data sources. EELD is developing detection capabilities to extract relevant data and relationships about people, organizations, and activities from message traffic and open source data. (Emphasis added.)

And I remind you that the guy who is now heading the government office that is officially tasked with this program is John Poindexter, who, again:

was tried and convicted in April 1990 of five felonies, including: one count of conspiring to obstruct official inquiries and proceedings, two counts of obstructing Congress, and two counts of false statements to Congress (this is from Mr. Walsh's report).

(Note: These convictions were overturned on appeal not because they were found to be defective on the merits, but because Poindexter had been extended a limited grant of immunity from prosecution, which the appeals court judges ruled shielded him from prosecution on the charges. This just keeps getting scarier.)

In (much) lighter news: According to this study, it seems that (a) sex is a low-risk activity overall (with respect to susceptibility to heart attacks) and (b) extra-marital sex is apparently more stressful than sex between long-time partners. I use the word "stressful" liberally.

IU Dorm Porn Film: depending upon your point of view, either this ratchets Indiana University way up your list of schools to attend, or it drops IU off your list entirely. Or maybe, if you're like me, it really isn't an issue applicable to you, but you still find it amusing.

Only in San Fran: in other adult-related news, I just found out that there exists a union for exotic dancers! And they're on strike! Seems that, among other things, management wants to take away their one paid sick day per year. Note to management: for the good of your customers, maybe an increase in sick days would be useful. I can't imagine there can be much enjoyment in watching a nude woman wipe her runny nose. But that's just me.