Let’s see. We’re going to build a system to monitor all Internet traffic coming in and out of the country. Hmm… The only other country to do this well is this communist, authoritarian regime over in the East. Hmm… Our democratically inclined, freedom-loving population might mistake this for some dystopian, Orwellian, Stepford-like scheme for the government to invade the lives of our citizens and perhaps use it to control information and the like. So we don’t want to frighten people and give them the idea that we’re going to use it to create perfectly conformist citizenry. Hmm… I know. Let’s name it Perfect Citizen! Perfect! Has a nice ring to it. Reminds me of the 1950s for some reason. And it follows up nicely on the name for that scheme to eavesdrop on all domestic Internet traffic. The one with the cool name that made all of that eavesdropping seem nonthreatening. You know, Carnivore.
