Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7

"Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the banks and other companies were forced to allow DARPA to access their files, a move normally considered an invasion of privacy.
When news of TIA first surfaced in 2002, along with the appointment of Poindexter, a key-figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, as director, citizens’ watchdog groups and some members of Congress took a second look.  The uproar that followed led to the resignation of Poindexter, who had lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation, and the elimination of funding for TIA.
But Congress left the door open by supplying DARPA with research funding to develop data mining alternatives to TIA. Instead, the Bush administration instructed the Pentagon to move TIA into the convert area of black bag operations and Congress was cut out of the loop.
Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.
“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”
The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.
“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.
Such data mining is also called “database profiling” and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union."