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This really is too much. While here in New Mexico more than a dozen people in Santa Fe were hauled off by the feds because they come from Arab families, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency in Washington, D.C. (DARPA) is funding an incredibly intrusive program called "LifeLog," the goal of which is nothing less than keeping track of everyone, everywhere, all the time. And amazingly, there's more.

We think this is relevant news for Applelinks because we're talking about surveillance technology that would be impossible without computers and the Internet. Here's what writer Noah Shachtman writes about the LifeLog project for Wired News:

"The embryonic LifeLog program would take every e-mail you've sent or received, every picture you've taken, every web page you've surfed, every phone call you've had, every TV show you've watched, every magazine you've read, and dump it into a giant database.

All of this -- and more -- would be combined with a GPS transmitter, to keep tabs on where you're going; audio-visual sensors, to capture all that you see or say; and biomedical monitors, to keep track of your health.

This gigantic amalgamation of personal information could then be used to trace the 'threads' of an individual's life,' to see exactly how a relationship or events developed, according to a briefing from the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, LifeLog's sponsor."

Meanwhile, some people can't wait for the government to set up a permanent database for all its citizens. Minicomputer expert Gordon Bell, for one, is said to be putting all his letters, memos, conversations, Web page visits, emails, etc. into a Microsoft research project called MyLifeBits. Personally, we think this behavior is certifiably insane.The point, apparently, is to be remembered, as if having one's life digitized assures immortality. How much more elegant and human it would be to simply live a great life and be remembered for one's deeds and contributions to the world. Which brings us to the final DARPA idiocy:

As reported by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, the feds are spending huge amounts of money to develop a database of how every one of us walks. That's right, walks. The Pentagon is trying to develop "a radar-based device that can identify people by the way they walk for use in a new antiterrorist surveillance system."

LifeLog will supuposedly help the military identify terrorists by digitally mapping every aspect of a person's behavior.

"In other words, Osama bin Laden's agent takes a walk around the block at 10 each morning, buys a bagel and a newspaper at the corner store and then calls his mother. You do the same things -- so maybe you're an al Qaeda member, too!"

Combine the above with a walk-detecting radar (we are all to be microwaved without consent, it seems) and not a single terrorist will ever escape detection -- unless he forgoes the bagel and affects a limp, perhaps. But joking aside, we truly believe this is madness. Utter complete madness, a waste of badly-needed resources, an affront to liberty, and ineffectual to boot.

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