*
On the recommendation of the Secretary of State, the President of the United States prepared to sign a top-secret perpetual project directive warning all future Presidents, the COSA experiment was a national security imperative that had to supersede the vagaries of quadrennial elections. The document, to be locked in a safe with other transition materials, explained COSA's inter-connected infrastructure and the impracticability of attempting to dismantle any section of the system. The advice laid out the government and business strategy, and suggested each future President accept the inevitability of maintaining ground and online surveillance as part of the national defense against physical and cyber terrorist threats.
"But the legal implications if the public should find out..." the President of the United States stated, his concern expressed to Julia in the Oval Office on the day of the signing. Marco had joined her, as had the chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Mr. President, as I mentioned, this research project has been implemented with extraordinary cooperation. And if the experiment works, we will have demonstrated our capability to achieve the widest reach possible over the activities of terrorists."
"But we will be aggregating citizens' online activity in an attempt to predict their next move."
"Mr. President, with all due respect, on any given day there are perhaps 350 million people in this country. Can you imagine the resources we would need to really pay attention to every little motion every American, temporary resident and tourist is making each day? The conspiracy theorists can speculate all they want, but tracking every individual every minute, on cost alone, the scheme is basically impossible. This project will flag the bad guys. The system knows the difference between a gun store and a grocery store. Facial recognition is only on people we have been tracking in other systems because of their subversive activity. We don't know anything about the average American unless the person becomes a suspect. For some reason, people think we care about their every activity, but we do not. We only want the threats to our national security, and those guys come to us by virtue of their illegal behavior. They act first, not us, and definitely not the system."
"I see Justice has signed off, but I'm still not sure what the American people would think of this. Everyone is already up in arms over the cell phone monitoring mess."
"Sure but that was a functioning system implemented without the consent of the American people. This is an experiment, only R&D to understand our capabilities. We are testing the functionality and determining possible features. Once we have a concrete idea of our capabilities, we can develop a comprehensive program to formally implement for the long-term." Marco had been looking at Julia as she spoke, but dropped his head to stare at a dot on the floor as she continued to weave a less than accurate tale for the world's most powerful man. "We have to practice with the software, get rid of bugs, determine exactly the level of potential compromises, all of those sorts of tests will be analyzed before we complete the work. You really have nothing to worry about, sir. As the Justice Department said, we are only operating in public areas, there are no legal implications when people are functioning in public."
"People do not think their online activity is public."
"Only because they do not understand the fine print. The Supreme Court has already said if you hand over information to a public company to provide a service for you, like banking, that's their information not yours."
"This is different, this is about identity."
"The average person is comfortable with the process. For the life they want, a law-abiding, normal life, they have signed up, everyone is online. Handing over personal information is not a major issue, they want to be connected and they'll want the conveniences this project will eventually deliver."
"Yes, I must say I love the opportunity to extend education through online services and help people connect their studies directly to jobs, those possibilities will be enormously beneficial."
"Yes Mr. President, the benefits of this project are fantastic. Really, if we can solidify this testing everyone will profit. We only wish to ensure future administrations understand the implications and are as insightful as you in recognizing the potential for our nation and the world."
On those words, the President broadly smiled at Julia, as he signed the paper permanently locking the system into place for the duration of its global implementation.