:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 5.19.2003 ::

:: TIA update ::

From Wired:
Spy Plan Faces Critical Deadline

As college students across the country rush to finish their final papers, the Pentagon is preparing to turn in its final report on the Total Information Awareness project in hopes of getting a passing grade from Congress.

More than a college transcript is at stake for the program, however. Its continued existence likely will turn on the report's reception.

The report, which is due Tuesday, must outline the project's privacy implications and detail the scope of the system intended to catch terrorists by combing through Americans' travel records and credit card purchases.

In January, the Senate unanimously approved a spending bill amendment which ordered the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department to report on the project to Congress. Failure to do so would cost the program its future funding.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), survived House-Senate negotiations. President Bush signed the bill Feb. 20, making Tuesday the report's deadline.

Wyden warned the Senate on March 13 not to attempt to undo the oversight requirements.

"The TIA technology will give the federal government the capability to operate the most massive domestic surveillance program in the history of our country," putting the financial, medical and other details of Americans' private lives in the hands of tens of thousands of bureaucrats, he said. "The American people have the right to know if the federal government intends to deploy this technology against them, when it will do so and how, and Congress should preserve its oversight over the program."

posted by me

:: 9:51:00 PM [+] ::
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