The Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project, a massive effort to use information technology to know everything about everyone in the name of national security, was too controversial, so Congress pulled the plug on funding in 2003. (Recent reports suggest that the effort was secretly taken up by the National Security Agency, where the spotlight of public scrutiny never shines.) In any event, I'm here to tell you that you can build your own "Total Information Awareness" system using Google Alerts. It's fast, easy and free to do. And fun.Google Alerts lets you set up Google searches. When new "hits" to those searches are posted on the Internet somewhere, Google Alerts sends you an e-mail with a link.

It's a very simple tool. But I'm going to tell you how to use it to constantly stay in touch with the people, places and topics you care about.

Why would you want to do such a thing? Well, it can make you a better person -- by that I mean a better professional, a better friend, a better family member.

Let's say you have a friend who lives on the other side of the country. Let's call her "Janet Birkenstock." You can set up a Google Alert using quotation marks around her name that searches both news stories and web sites. Then you can just forget about it. From then on, whenever Janet runs a marathon, gets promoted, is quoted in the local newspaper, or does anything that someone mentions in the news or on the web, you get an e-mail with a link to that page. You can always be the first to congratulate her, or whatever. The point is that you're staying in touch with and remain aware of your friend without any effort at all.

Now imagine setting up similar searches with all your friends, family members, former colleagues and others -- and, of course, yourself (to find out what others might say about you).

You can set up dozens or even hundreds of these Alert searches, and they will work for you forever, finding information on people you care about and letting you know what's new with them.

Now set up searches about your neighborhood or small town. If some developer is planning to bulldoze the local park and build a shopping mall, you'll be the first to know (and can visit the local city council meeting in time to provide input).

Let's say you have a favorite columnist, and want to find out what else I, er, I mean "he or she" writes about. Set up an alert with that person's name.

If you have a blog, you can use Alerts to tell you when someone has linked to you.

The kinds of searches you can set up is limited only by your imagination.

Here are instructions and tips for using Google Alerts for Total Information Awareness.

1. Point your browser at news.google.com

2. On the left side of the page, click on "News Alerts."

3. Add your search term -- you can put anything here that you would put in any Google search.

4. Choose the type "News & Web" from the drop-down menu

5. Choose any frequency you like (I prefer "as-it-happens" for that TIA sense of immediacy)

6. Add your e-mail address and click "Create Alert"

Here are my tips for using Google Alerts:

* Make sure you put quotes around complete names

* If the name can be used multiple ways, use the OR operator (Example: "Mike Elgan" OR "Michael Elgan")

* If the person or subject matter might be discussed in groups, set up a second search for groups

* When you first set up an Alert, you'll get flooded with hits, including everything that's been posted in the past decade. Just wait. They'll slow down after a few days, after which time you'll get only newly posted pages.

* The most difficult part of this is for people with common names. If you want to stay informed whenever "John Smith" is mentioned, you're going to get flooded with e-mail. Use additional terms to narrow it down, and just ignore false positives.

* Be active in creating new Alerts, deleting Alerts that aren't working as you'd like, and modifying existing Alerts. By constantly "tweaking" your Alerts, you'll be able to get them to perform exactly as you like.

* I recommend setting up a separate e-mail address for this -- Gmail (mail.google.com) is perfect.

* If you find yourself searching Google for anything on a regular basis, just set up a new Alert and let the search results come to YOU.

So there you have it: Fun, free and easy Total Information Awareness. Let me know what cool, innovative uses you've come up with to use Google Alerts, and I'll share the best ideas with other readers: mikeptp@elgan.com