Recent news articles point to a growing controvery over proposed surveillance programs to collect and review personal data generated by daily online transactions by citizens. This New York Times article, Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running, concludes that the foundation for much of the work to conduct widespread surveillance has already been completed, and in large measure, is already in place in the military sector. The article highlights the role of Extensible Markup Language (XML) in facilitating access to data streams across platforms, thereby accelerating the information collection process by programs tasked with such goals, such as the Total Information Awareness Office.