The excerpt below contains a major insight into how the Government is thinking these days.

Apparently, the Chief of the Department of Homeland Security appeared at a closed meeting and discussed some options for “improving” the quality of info available to the DHS.

One option was for the DHS to create a “non-profit” company that “collected” info on the movements of everyone. Then the company would study the movements, and pass along to DHS the names and info for some persons whose movements or other activities might be of interest.

The DHS Chief apparently thinks that the government can’t collect the info directly. Instead, the DHS Chief thinks that the government should (probably secretly) establish a “private company” to do the dirty work.

Let’s pretend for a minute that we had never heard this report. Let’s pretend that, four years from now, an investigative reporter were to report that he had learned that “ABC Company” is actually a government front operation, collecting data and feeding it secretly to the DHS so the DHS could snoop on US citizens.

If the Republicans were in charge of the White House, you can bet your last dollar that the spinwits like Limbaugh-Hannity-Coulter would accuse the reporter and his newspaper of “left wing bias” and try to discredit them.

Now that we’ve heard this report in advance of the creation of the secret snooping company, maybe the spinwits will be a little bit less likely to jump on the offensive when this latest Big Brother operation become a reality.

www.GovExec.com - DHS chief floats idea of collecting private citizens’ information

Call it Total Information Awareness, homeland-style.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious people to his department.

The idea, which Chertoff tossed out at an April 27 meeting with security-industry officials, is reminiscent of the Defense Department’s now-dead Total Information Awareness program that sought to sift though heaps of foreign intelligence information to root out potential terrorist activity.

According to one techie who attended the April 27 meeting, Chertoff told the group, “Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people’s activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the nonprofit could give us the names.”