"Information" does not equal "communication." Nevertheless, information as content in any communication system is essential. What has been striking to me recently is how the Bush administration manages information and consquently manages our ability to make sense of what is going on. Today, the NY Times reported that a Bush-appointed judge ruled that the GAO had no standing in its suit for VP Cheney's records regarding his meetings with energy industry insiders for purposes of shaping national energy policies. No information for the public, which certainly has an interest in it. However, the administration is pushing forward with TIA (Total Information Awareness) [see http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm] which turns the tables on the citizenry. Take a look at the TIA plan and you will see that the term "Total" is no exaggeration.

With the balance of information being so profoundly shifted to the administration, it becomes difficult to see how a democratic system can continue. Secret policy meetings; secret deals among a privileged elite; secret probing of information without warrant simply concentrate power in ways that advantage those in power and intimidate potential critics. Perhaps we will need to take some solace in the fact that the Soviet system eventually crumbled under that fact that almost total control of information and decision-making is too big a task for a small group of people to properly control. Too much information may become a two-edged sword.

This is a space to track the uses and abuses of communication systems of all sorts by the present administration. George W. Bush and his colleagues have been moving at lightning speed to limit the availability of information for the public while expanding access to information about individuals and organizations for government use. Changes are happening so rapidly and on so many fronts that I can't keep track of them without creating some sort of written record. This blog is a place to do that while inviting comment from others to assist me in keeping a clear-headed, fair minded perspective (and prevent me from becoming paranoid).