Try, Try Again
"The administration has flat out ignored Congress," said [ACLU Attorney] Sparapani. "They renamed it, re-tied the bow around it and off they went."UPI gives the latest update on the program that just won't go away -- 'Total Information' lives again.
The new U.S. intelligence czar is developing a computer system capable of data-mining huge amounts of information about everyday events to discern patterns that look like terrorist planning.
The technology is reminiscent of the axed Total Information Awareness program.
Civil liberties and privacy advocates criticized the effort, called Tangram, which is being developed by contractors working for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
"They are misdirecting resources towards this kind of fanciful, science-fiction project," said ACLU attorney Tim Sparapani, "while neglecting the basics" of good counter-terrorist detective work.
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Nonetheless, the new system is bound to attract controversy because of its similarity to the Total Information Awareness or TIA program, a project run by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
That program also aimed to detect patterns of suspect terrorist behavior by data-mining huge stores of information about everyday transactions like credit card purchases, telephone calls and travel records.
Alarmed by the privacy and civil liberties implications of the program, Congress in 2003 cut all funding for it, but research continued in different agencies, funded by appropriations in the classified intelligence annex to the Defense Department budget.
Most of that continuing research was conducted by the Advanced Research and Development Activity, a unit formerly based at the National Security Agency but now part of Negroponte's office. The National Journal, which first revealed the existence of Tangram last week, said that office would oversee the new program, too.
"The administration has flat out ignored Congress," said Sparapani. "They renamed it, re-tied the bow around it and off they went."
For more on the TIA program, see Peek-a-boo.
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