WASHINGTON, Nov 13: A Pentagon research office is designing a global computer surveillance system that would sift through personal data on government and commercial databases around the world in the hunt for terrorists, a news report said on Tuesday.

The system would sift through “ultra-large” data warehouses and computer networks to find suspicious e-mail, odd fund transfers, signs of people travelling to risky areas, or medical treatments for ailments such as anthrax sores, said The Washington Post.

The agency developing it, the Information Awareness Office, is run by John Poindexter, the former national security adviser to president Ronald Reagan who was the most senior official convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, said the Post.

The office — which receives 200 million dollars a year in public funds — has an emblem that features an eye that looms above a pyramid and appears to scan the world, with the motto “Scientia Est Potentia”, or “knowledge is power”, said The Washington Post.

Although the system is years away from being feasible, the office has already begun to help the FBI build its data-warehousing system.—dpa