Bombs? Assassinations? Attacks? Place your bets!

Remember the Policy Awareness Market? It was a DARPA-backed plan to establish a “futures” market wagering on the likelihood of terrorist attacks, assassinations, and the like that almost slipped under the radar until being outed and subsequently shut down last July.

The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.

[…] The little-publicized Pentagon plan envisioned a potential futures trading market in which speculators would wager on the Internet on the likelihood of a future terrorist attack or assassination attempt on a particular leader. A website promoting the plan already is available. When the plan was disclosed by two Democratic senators Monday, the Pentagon defended it as a way to gain intelligence about potential terrorists’ plans. Earlier, Warner had said that his staff was looking into the program and would report on it later Tuesday. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York), said she was appalled to hear of plans to set up “a futures market in death.” Other Democrats expressed similar alarm. “The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it’s grotesque,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), one of two lawmakers who disclosed the plan Monday.

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p>Well, guess what? It’s back! Apparently it’s now being run without government involvement, but the idea is still incredibly sick and wrong.

(via Daily Kos)