Pentagon Gives Up Terrorist Totalizator

Terrorists might have benefited from the new program too
The Pentagon scraps the idea of opening an online futures market that aimed to get information on Middle East events by giving investors a chance to bet on the probability of wars, terrorist attacks and assassinations. The idea raised a hail of protests at the US Congress, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz assured lawmakers that the program would be terminated, NEWSRu.com informs. 

In the framework of the program the founders of the Pentagon's Policy Analysis Market offered those who wish to estimate the probability of assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, overthrowing of the King of Jordan and, although it is outside the geographic framework of the program, to predict the staert of a war with North Korea. In fact, it was the idea of a political totalizator.

It was expected that participants of the futures trades would be registered this Friday and the trades were to be launched on October 1.

The authors of the idea say they wanted to add the effective mechanism of market forecasts to the present-day anti-terrorist campaign. However, critics immediately said that terrorists themselves might successfully use the new system. Senator Barbara Boxer said that as terrorists planned an attack, they might easily stake on it and snatch a large sum.

Admiral John Poindexter, Ronald Reagan's national security adviser is the man who initiated creation of the program. He is also known as the author of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. According to this program cracking of medical, financial and other data bases is allowed to track different terrorist contacts. 

This year the US Congress became anxious about the program's legitimacy; it prohibited usage of the program in its initial form and renamed in into the Terrorism Information Awareness. In July, the Senate decided to block financing of the program, but it is the House of Representatives that has the last say on the problem.