Holy Smokes! Those rascals at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—lovingly called DARPA by fans like me—are at it again.

darpaSpooks at the Pentagon's high-tech development arm, which once brought us the creepily named Total Information Awareness project—apparently have seen the error in their ways— just as my countdown clock at O'Dwyer's is ticking down to zero.

Evil genius John Poindexter, the brains behind the Orwellian-named TIA effort, wanted to develop a system to scoop up every shred of information available in cyberspace-- and God knows where else—for Pentagon databanks.

The spin: Uncle Sam is working 24/7 to keep his people safe from terrorists following the 9/11 terror attacks. Right-o! Wow, how original!

Privacy advocates, of course, went nuts with the all-encompassing reach of Poindexter and his digital surveillance sleuths.

Team Poindexter didn't help matters by developing a TIA logo that featured the all-seeing eye that had many—including yours truly, closing the shades at night and throwing the blankets over his head. Granted, the logo made a great t-shirt for information warriors, the shirt would make a nifty going away gift—hint, hint.

Officially, the Pentagon disowned TIA. Surprisingly, many of its aspects surfaced in the day-to-day intelligence activities of the Pentagon and its federal allies. As George W. Bush used to say, "Mission Accomplished."

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden highlighted those TIA program offshoots in his document drop.

The Pentagon did learn a valuable lesson from the TIA uproar. Son of TIA is called Brandeis, who was Supreme Court champion of privacy. Brandeis has a nice progressive ring to it. Louis Brandeis would want to protect your rights, rather than eavesdrop on every moment of your day.

The Brandeis project is supposed to develop protocols to enhance privacy. Don’t be fooled. Stay alert.

I give a tip of the cap to the boys and girls at DARPA for their persistence in scrutinizing the data of Americans.

I'll miss you.