US president Bush announced plans to launch a program against cyber terrorism against the U.S. and requested 154 US$ for preliminary funding. The whole programme is expected to become a seven-year, multibillion-dollar project for tracking threats in gouvernment and private networks.

When I'm reading these numbers my first reaction is: awesome! Hopefully this will also reduce SPAM and threats through viruses issued by normal criminals. So much money and and few good men: this could become a success story.

But we aren't in the 1960s. Modern project management is working different. As Charles M. Herzfeld said a few weeks ago, "agency heads are all wishy-washy". What sense does all that money make if it's burnt in imprecise standards, written by people who are highly risk-averse and don't get the big picture? Is there true leadership in helping citizens to have a peaceful and undisturbed life or is it just the usual pruning of civil rights where everybody might be suspicious because decision makers don't understand what they're doing? There's a chance to lose "the ability to do big, complicated things" and we all - not only US citizens - might pay a high price for this. (Source)