Poindexter,
a retired Navy admiral, runs the Information Awareness Office (IAO)
at the supersecret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA). Poindexter has argued that his proposed surveillance system
is needed to fight global terrorism.
But activists have created webpages to invade Poindexter's own
privacy, posting his home phone number, his home address, his
birthday, information about his family, ways to find his Social
Security number, and even a satellite photo of his neighborhood.
Web of Snoops
One website, BreakYourChains.org, features the John Poindexter
Awareness Office. Stephen DeVoy, a computer scientist in Texas,
created the site last month.
"I created the website to draw attention to the dangers of the
IAO," he said. "I also created the website to make those working for
the IAO understand why we find their project offensive. Putting them
in a similar situation might send this message home."
DeVoy says his site is getting 2,000 hits a day. Visitors are
asked to submit any personal information they obtain on Poindexter,
such as where he shops and travels.
One visitor to the website reported seeing Poindexter at a
Sharper Image store in a Delaware mall, looking over "various radio
and high tech items." Another reported seeing him at a holiday
office party. "He always look pretty shifty," the visitor wrote.
Mary Titus is an Internet activist in New York who created a Web
page that satirizes Poindexter and features an "Information
Violation Office."
"It's easy to acquire [Poindexter's] own personal information and
publicly give that out. And the gauntlet has basically been thrown
down," Titus said. "People across the Internet have quickly picked
this up."
Admiral on the Run
The campaign already has forced Poindexter to change his home
phone number.
Also, since the campaign began, the IAO has stripped its website
of its controversial "Knowledge Is Power" logo and Poindexter's
biography.
"I think they're getting to him," said Declan McCullagh, a
Washington, D.C., reporter and Web writer who is following the
story. "I have not seen any other federal bureaucrat targeted with
this amount of interest before."
Poindexter and DARPA won't comment on the websites or the
harassment campaign.
Poindexter was controversial even before he joined DARPA. He was
a National Security Advisor to President Reagan and was convicted in
the Iran/Contra affair of lying to Congress, though his conviction
was later overturned. | 
PRINT THIS
PAGE