"Person of Interest" the CBS cop drama about a government super computer that can predict the victims and perpetrators of crime may not be so far fetched, after all.

The government has been trying to build exactly the kind of machine that we feature on the show for about a decade now, producer Jonathan Nolan says.

And now, it appears to have succeeded.

The National Security Agency is in the process of constructing a $2 billion data processing and spy center in remote Bluffdale, Utah, according to a recent report.

When completed next year, the one-million-square-foot facility will be used to intercept, store and analyze everything from private e-mails and cellphone calls to Web searches and parking tickets.

I SPY: Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) quits his job when he realizes the machine he made will be used for illegal surveillance.

The no-longer secret project first exposed by the tech magazine Wired in March is an apparent realization of the Total Information Awareness project proposed by the Bush White House in the months following 9/11.

TIA was nixed by Congress in 2003 amid fears of invading the privacy of ordinary Americans.

Person of Interest which producers like to call science fact is based on the idea that a version of the cyber-surveillance system was actually built and is now being used secretly by its designer to prevent violent crimes on the streets of New York.

The show, the top-rated new drama of last season, was a near-instant hit when it debuted last fall.

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The machine is real