posted 07-21-2003 07:55 PM
Finally the Senate seems to be waking up but ultimately you people should contact those in congress that represent you so you can let em know how you feel on this. If this does pass in the future you can bet some here will be labled terrorist.enate votes to cut off funds for surveillance program
Washington Post Service
WASHINGTON - A Senate vote to cut off funding is the latest setback for a controversial computer surveillance program the Pentagon wants. The program would enable authorities to search vast networks of personal records to look for possible terrorist activity.
The vote late Thursday to deny any funds being spent on what is now called the Terrorism Information Awareness program was part of a $369 billion military spending bill that passed unanimously.
The Bush administration, which requested $54 million for the program over three years, had urged the Senate to remove the provision cutting off funding.
A provision in the House defense appropriations bill that passed last week left room for further development of the program, though it prohibited use of the program's technology on U.S. citizens without congressional permission.
The House and Senate will meet in conference to discuss the differences between bills.
The $54 million initiative seeks to develop a database of public and private records that could be combed for patterns that may reveal terrorist activity. Authorities could search credit card bills and airline records, as well as health, education and other personal information, the Pentagon told Congress in a report in May.
Other elements of the proposed program included developing long-distance surveillance technology that could identify a person by their gait, or, from closer in, by the iris of their eye.
The research project, originally known as the Total Information Awareness initiative, began in 2002 under the direction of former national security advisor John Poindexter.
Fearing the Orwellian overtones of the office logo -- an all-seeing eye with the slogan ''knowledge is power'' in Latin -- bipartisan support grew in Congress and among privacy coalitions to check the program's development.
Civil liberties advocates, who have harshly criticized the initiative as an invasion of privacy, applauded the Senate action.
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