Senate votes to end terrorism Information Awareness project

Information Management Journal, Sep/Oct 2003 by Swartz, Nikki

By any name, the Pentagon's proposed terrorism surveillance program - Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA), formerly known as Total Information Awareness - has raised privacy concerns in the United States and around the world.

In a military spending bill it recently passed unanimously, the U.S. Senate forbade the Defense Department from spending any portion of its $369 billion budget on the TIA program, despite a request from the Bush administration to keep development efforts intact.

"No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense ... or to any other department, agency, or element of the federal government, may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program," the bill stated.

The TIA plan, which was being developed and tested under the supervision of retired admiral John Poindexter, would have developed computer software that can scan vast public and private databases of commercial transactions and personal data around the world to provide advance warning of terrorist attacks. In an analysis of the proposed defense bill sent to the Senate before the vote, the administration contended that to strip TIA funding "would deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism."

Concern that the records of millions of law-abiding Americans would be subjected to government scrutiny prompted Congress earlier this year to enact an amendment proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.). Wyden's amendment, which expires September 30, bans use of any funds, without further consent from Congress, to implement the surveillance program domestically against U.S. citizens. The amendment allows continued research and implementation abroad against anyone and in this country against non-U.S. citizens. Both the Senate and House version of the defense spending bill contain language that would extend the Wyden amendment for another year.

The fate of the $54 million TIA program now will be determined in negotiations with the House of Representatives, which forbade the Pentagon from using the program on U.S. citizens without permission but did not cut off funding when it approved its version of the Pentagon's budget earlier. Because the tougher language banning research passed the Senate, a House-Senate committee will have to decide whether the final bill will contain the outright ban, the Wyden amendment, or another alternative. The House version does not eliminate spending for TIA, so final language will need to be determined when a single bill is hammered out.

According to James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates online privacy, a total ban on the TIA program would affect not only the controversial data-mining, but also some components that have raised other privacy concerns, including computerized translation of foreign documents and broadcasts and efforts to exchange and analyze intelligence data.