Senators Try to Stop Pentagon's Data Dragnet
By Reuters
Thursday 16 January 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saying privacy rights were threatened, Senate Democrats set out on
Thursday to pull the plug on a Bush administration database that would sift through Americans' records to
try to pinpoint terrorist threats.
The Defense Department says the aim of the so-called Total Information Awareness project, under
former national security adviser John Poindexter, is to seek patterns in transactions data like credit card
bills to stop terrorist plots.
But Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin vowed to block funding
for the program now while it is still under development, until Congress can give it a thorough review.
``Our country must fight terrorism, but America should not unleash virtual bloodhounds to sniff into the
financial, educational, travel and medical records of millions of Americans,'' Wyden told reporters on Capitol
Hill.
Wyden has introduced an amendment to a large spending package being debated in the Senate that
would ban any funding for the program. Feingold introduced separate legislation to suspend the project until
Congress gets oversight of it.
A third Democrat, Sen. Jon Corzine, dubbed the Total Information Awareness system ``Orwellian,'' and
a coalition of left- and right-wing groups also denounced the computer dragnet at a news conference.
They ranged from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union, which fears the project will amount to
electronic surveillance of personal data of all Americans by the government, to the conservative Americans
for Tax Reform, which says it is an unnecessary expansion of government.
Former Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican, blasted the fledgling ``cyber-spying system''
in a statement.
``Make no mistake, Total Information Awareness would encourage faceless federal agents to engage in
blind fishing expeditions into the information that we most want to keep private,'' Barr said.
'TAKE A DEEP BREATH,' RUMSFELD TOLD CRITICS
Defense officials say Poindexter came up with the idea of developing a database of transactions to help
intelligence and law enforcement agencies anticipate terrorist plots after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in
Washington and New York.
But while the data collected could include things such as medical records or banking transactions,
defense officials have said it would be used in adherence with privacy laws.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends the program as a research experiment. Late last year he
advised anyone getting upset over the project to ``take a nice deep, deep breath.''
But questions have mushroomed. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican and incoming chairman
of the Finance Committee, wrote to the Pentagon in November asking about the program, saying he could
not understand why Pentagon resources were being spent on research for domestic law enforcement.
In November, the Pentagon said Total Information Awareness had a budget of $10 million. But Feingold
said ``data-mining'' projects like the program were expected to cost over $137 million in the current fiscal
year, and could grow to more than $575 million in the next three years.
Data would be shared by Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and other government
agencies, Feingold said.
Critics are not reassured by the fact that Poindexter, a retired admiral who was convicted of deceiving
Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, is directing the project. His conviction was set aside on the grounds
his immunized congressional testimony had been used against him.
``It's ironic that Admiral Poindexter is leading the charge. That speaks for itself,'' Corzine said.
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