Big Brother is Here

There is news from the AP this morning that the Defence Department is developing a system to monitor activity "in foreign countries" that can record make, model, license number, face of driver, etc. with face recognition software to provide a permanent record of everything the system observes. It's called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is only supposed to be used "in foreign countries." The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies for combatting terrorism and fighting wars in the 21st century.

There is probably no way to keep DARPA from being used eventually in the U.S., but in the mean time we need to get rid of lots of "culture war" laws (such as the Texas Sodomy Law) or else we'll see law enforcement having a fieldday rounding up marijuana smokers and other minor sorts of combatants in the culture wars.