Internet Crisis Monitoring Center

The Bush administration is quietly assembling an Internet-wide monitoring center to detect and respond to attacks on vital information systems and key e-commerce sites.

The center, which has been in development for the past 15 months, is a key piece of the White House's national cybersecurity strategy and represents a major leap in the federal government's effort to achieve real-time tracking of the Internet's health.

The "Global Early Warning Information System," (GEWIS, pronounced "gee-whiz") is being built by the National Communications System (NCS), a Defense agency established in 1962 to ensure that the government has access to adequate communications systems during national emergencies. It is unrelated to the Total Information Awareness program, a planned Defense Department program that would actively mine databases worldwide to uncover terrorist and other threats.

The NCS started building the GEWIS system shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when it began asking major Internet and telecommunications providers to sell "real-time" data about the status of their networks, said NCS Deputy Manager Brent Greene.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jan30.html

As in 'Spyware that's legal'

I figured i would let everyone else make their own decisions. But that's definately the idea that came to my mind.