国会纪录：2003年7月28日（参议院）Page S10033 DARPA和期货市场Dorgan先生。主席先生，我们正处于能源法案，但我希望花点时间，因为我的同事从怀俄明州完成了他的陈述，就另一个主题发言。今天早上，我的同事来自俄勒冈州的参议员威登，我有一个新闻发布会披露了防守部的一个小角落的东西。它非常令人讨厌。我应该在最初说，最近几个月，参议员威登和我试图将一个小项目放在一起处理政府垃圾。我们俩都相信政府非常强烈的政府做了很多事情来改善人们的生活。IT资金教育和高速公路，为该国家的保护和辩护提供。政府对我们日常生活的重要事项有很多事情，但是当政府浪费金钱时，它很震惊。我们在五角大楼的一个小角落里发现了应该立即停止的东西：三天内，一名由名为Darpa的五角大楼的机构赞助的计划将开始允许创造期货的注册人们购买和销售期货合约的计划。 It is an approach to try to use the market system to predict future events in the Middle East, they say. I encourage people to go to their Web page and take a look at it. They say, for example, they will create a futures market in which buyers and sellers will make judgments and price futures contracts on predictive events such as: Will Mr. Arafat be assassinated? Will the King of Jordan be overthrown? Will there be a bioterrorist attack against the country of Israel? I told someone about discovering that this was going on at the Pentagon. They said I am clearly wrong about that; there is not any way the Pentagon can be setting up a futures contract system in which people will make bets on the Internet about whether some leader will be assassinated or whether there will be a bioterrorist attack. The answer is, they are wrong. That is exactly what is happening. I say to anybody who wonders about it, go to the Internet. It is unbelievably stupid as a public policy, in my judgment, to think that real intelligence can be replaced by a betting system involving people connected to the Internet around the world; that you can replace real intelligence with a so-called market-based system in which presumably informed buyers and sellers would make bets, wagers--they call it futures contracts, but in fact it would be wagers--on whether a foreign leader would be assassinated, on whether there would be a bioterrorist attack, on whether North Korea would launch missiles. I am using all of these examples because they are on the Internet site sponsored by the Department of Defense. This is real. I thought immediately, this clearly must be someone who went to The Onion and it is a spoof. No, it is not. One does not find this on The Onion. They find it on an Internet site sponsored by DARPA at the Department of Defense, saying they are going to create this system and the sign-up starts August 1. The trading on futures contracts on these kinds of questions trying to be predictive about future events in the Middle East will begin on October 1, and they hope to ultimately have 10,000 traders. It is the most Byzantine, harebrained scheme I think I have ever heard coming from Government. I say to DARPA, and to Admiral Poindexter, who I understand is running this program: Stop it. End it. If not, we will try to end it in the appropriations process. The Department of Defense does a lot of wonderful things. I have great admiration for them, and I serve on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. But putting together a program for trading of futures contracts on the kinds of propositions I have just mentioned-- assassinating leaders, bioterrorist attacks--is not a project that warrants any credibility at all. It is a tragic waste of the taxpayers' money. It is offensive and, in my judgment, it will have no value to anyone. My hope is that Senator Wyden and I will have convinced the Pentagon today that enough is enough. Stop this kind of nonsense. ____________________