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Senate Asks for Privacy Rules

Senate vote cuts funding for Total Information Awareness project until privacy safeguards are provided.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Following Sen. Patrick Leahy's demand for information on controversial 'data mining' by government agencies, the U.S. Senate Thursday night unanimously voted to end funding for the programs until adequate safeguards are implemented to protect the privacy of the American public.

The amendment targets the controversial Defense Department program known as Total Information Awareness (TIA) and other data-mining activities at the Department of Justice. Without clear authorization from Congress, TIA has been set up to develop data-mining technologies to capture information on anyone surfing the Internet and on anyone with information on medical, financial, credit card or education databases. TIA is a project of the Information Awareness Office (IAO) within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is headed by former Reagan Administration National Security Adviser John Poindexter.

The amendment, offered by Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.), was cosponsored by Leahy and a bipartisan coalition of senators and follows Leahy's detailed request for information about data-mining activities from Attorney General John Ashcroft. It was added to an omnibus appropriations bill to fund government agencies for the current federal fiscal year. The spending package now goes to conference to iron out differences between the Senate bill and the counterpart House-passed bill, which does not contain a similar TIA amendment.

"In the cross currents between the Information Age and the war on terrorism, the ways of snooping into Americans' private lives are rapidly expanding," said Leahy. "It has been tempting, and too easy, for the administration to plunge head-long toward Big-Brotherhood without accountability to the public or to the Congress about what government agencies are doing to build and use these databases. There are legitimate ways to use technology to track terrorists, but it's also too easy to abuse these tools to gather information on law-abiding citizens. Our amendment cuts off funding unless and until the government answers basic questions that the American people have a right to know about how the information will be used and what the safeguards are."

If enacted, the legislation would halt research and development funding for TIA within 60 days unless the Defense Department submits a report detailing its procedures and privacy protections.

The amendment also prohibits deployment of TIA technologies to other governmental agencies without clear authorization and appropriations, ensuring congressional review. TIA funding could resume if the President certified to Congress that such a stoppage in the TIA program would endanger the national security of the United States.

On Jan. 10, 2003, Leahy, who then chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a comprehensive letter to Attorney General Ashcroft requesting information about TIA and the current data-mining practices and policies at the Justice Department. Joining Leahy in signing the letter were Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). The letter is available on the Leahy home page.

-- The Office of Sen. Patrick Leahy