Senate Votes to Deny Funding To Computer Surveillance Effort By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, July 19, 2003; Page E01
A Senate vote to cut off funding is the latest setback for a controversial computer surveillance program the Pentagon wants, to 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, saying in a statement Monday, "This provision would deny an important tool in the war on terrorism."
A provision in the House defense appropriations bill that passed last week left room for further work on 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 the bills.
Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversees the program, said yesterday, "We urge the conferees to remove the prohibition on research and development" of the program.
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 May. Other elements of the proposed program included developing long-distance surveillance technology that could identify people by their gaits, or, from closer in, by the irises of their eyes.
The research project, originally known as the Total Information Awareness initiative, began in 2002 under the direction of former national security adviser John M. 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 for checking the program's development.
Civil liberties advocates, who have harshly criticized the initiative as an invasion of privacy, applauded the Senate action.
"I think it's a landmark occasion. The Senate of the United States is stepping up and saying that they are not going to tolerate the creation of a surveillance society," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program.
"As originally proposed, this program would have been the biggest spying and surveillance program in the history of the country," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who spearheaded an earlier effort to ensure congressional oversight of the technology, said in an interview. "Now there are real checks, and a strong prospect that Congress will close the program altogether. I think this is a watershed moment for privacy rights."
"This starts from the premise that there might be something inherently suspicious about anyone even before a criminal act has occurred," said David L. Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "Though the government needs to be involved in preventative activity this really goes too far, and opens the door to serious abuses."