http://www.sunspot.net/business/nationworld/bal-te.terror29jul29,0,7935990WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is looking at setting up a commodity market-style trading system in which investors would be able to bet on political or even terrorist events, such as whether terrorists could strike Israel with biological weapons.
Defense officials said using such a betting method has been successful in predicting elections, monetary policy decisions and movie box office receipts. But two Senate Democrats called yesterday for an end to the program before investors start registering Friday, with one calling the proposal "ridiculous and grotesque" and another asking, "What on earth were they thinking?"
The Policy Analysis Market is the brainchild of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, and is directed by retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter, a key figure in the Iran-contra scandal in the 1980s whose computerized Terrorism Information Awareness program also has raised privacy concerns on Capitol Hill.
That "data mining" project would employ "virtual bloodhounds" able to compile records of a person's financial, travel, credit card and health history.
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