Indeed, as I wrote in my article, “New Report: ‘Recording Everything’ Details How Governments Can Shape the Dynamics of Dissent,” a 2011 Brookings Institution report actually confirmed what many have suspected for some time – that the United States government (and virtually every other government in the world) has the capability to monitor and record nearly every electronic interaction that occurs within its national borders.

In fact, the ability to do so is extremely cost-effective – even cheap – according to current comparisons of government spending thresholds. For instance, as the Brookings report noted, “The audio for all of the telephone calls made by a single person over the course of one year could be stored using roughly 3.3 gigabytes. On a per capita basis, the cost to store all phone calls will fall from about 17 cents per person per year today to under 2 cents in 2015.” Storing the location data for each of the 300 million American citizens could actually be accomplished for the price of a low-wage job – in the area of $18,000. The cost of creating this database of all video, audio, online, and location information of every person inside the national borders would pale in comparison to spending levels on many other current government projects, as the Brookings Institution report demonstrates.

The growing database, however, is not relegated to mere online communications. Video, audio, and location data are to be combined with biometric data such as fingerprints, vein scans, and iris scans, as well as actual DNA material in order to create a truly all-encompassing database of information on each and every American citizen.

Of course, the creation of the database of such material is not being openly announced in any direct manner, nor are the requirements for submission of much of the material being mandated as a matter of public policy at this time. Yet, regardless, the Total Information Awareness Network is moving forward at an ever-increasing rate.

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