Pentagon to Track Every American Consumer Purchase

A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Rear Adm. John Poindexter, former national security adviser to President Reagan, is developing the database under the Total Information Awareness Program. Poindexter was convicted on five counts of misleading Congress and making false statements during the Iran-Contra investigation.

"What this is talking about is making us a nation of suspects and I am sorry, the United States citizens should not have to live in fear of their own government and that is exactly what this is going to turn out to be," said Chuck Pena, senior defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

Pena and others say the database is an even greater violation of privacy rights than Attorney General John Ashcroft's nixed proposal to turn postal workers and delivery men into government tipsters.

"I don't think once you put something like this in place, you can ever create enough checks and balances and oversight," Pena said.