Pentagon database project gets oversight
By Reuters
February 8, 2003, 8:39 AM PT
The Defense Department, under pressure from Congress and privacy advocates,
announced on Friday the formation of two panels to oversee a project aimed
at scouring computer databases for terrorist threats.
But the Democratic senator leading efforts to kill funding for the project,
Oregon's Ron Wyden, said the Pentagon initiative had not softened his
opposition.
Critics, both liberal and conservative, have expressed concern that the
Total Information Awareness (TIA) project will trample privacy rights by
allowing for electronic surveillance of personal data of all Americans.
The Pentagon has argued that the goal of the project is to detect patterns
in transactions data such as credit card bills and travel records to nip
terrorist plots in the bud. They say the concept is "promising" but still
in the early stages.
Friday's move came two weeks after the Senate passed a measure sponsored by
Wyden to bar funding for the program until the Pentagon fully explains it
and assesses its impact on civil liberties.
Edward "Pete" Aldridge, under secretary of defense for acquisition,
technology and logistics, said he will head an internal oversight board
created within the Defense Department whose members will be senior Pentagon
officials.
He said the second board will be a federal advisory committee established
outside the Pentagon and be headed by Newton Minow, a professor of
communications law at Northwestern University in Illinois.
During a Pentagon briefing, Aldridge said retired Adm. John Poindexter, a
former White House national security adviser, remained in charge of the
program.
But Aldridge did not answer directly when asked if Poindexter would head
the project in the future, saying, "I don't want to get into personalities,
and I really don't want to debate the merits of TIA." He later said he was
not suggesting any changes in leadership.
The project's critics have expressed concern that it is headed by
Poindexter, who was convicted of deceiving Congress in the Reagan
administration's Iran-Contra scandal. His conviction was set aside on the
grounds his immunized congressional testimony improperly had been used
against him.
The critics attached Wyden's amendment barring TIA funding to a spending
bill, which is now in the hands of a committee of Senate and House of
Representatives negotiators.
Wyden said he will keep fighting for his amendment, which would also block
any deployment of the technology without congressional approval. "We're
going to work our heads off," he said during a telephone interview.
"I'm glad that the Pentagon has got the message that the country feels
strongly about these issues," Wyden said. "I'm glad they are going to have
an oversight board and an advisory committee, but neither of these should
take the place of legal safeguards written in the law and strong
congressional oversight."
President Bush's budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 calls for TIA
to get $20 million, Aldridge said, up from $10 million currently.
Aldridge said he believed the creation of the two boards addresses some of
the concerns of congressional critics, and said the Pentagon had briefed
Wyden about the move.
"We think we can probably come to a compromise that is acceptable to us,"
Aldridge said.
The internal Pentagon panel is slated to oversee the way terrorist tracking
tools are employed and set rules for how such methods are used inside and
outside the department. Its first meeting is set for later this month.
The seven-member outside advisory board is intended to advise the secretary
of defense on policy and legal issues related to the project. Other members
include First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, former U.S. Attorney General
Griffin Bell and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler.
The boards will help ensure that the project develops its methods in a
manner consistent with "U.S. constitutional law, U.S. statutory law and
American values related to privacy," the Pentagon said in a statement.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-983914.html?tag=fd_top
Proff Minnow...he is a trustee (and former Chairman) of The RAND Corporation.
and rider on a weird horse..."Newton Minow framed his critique of
television along similar lines, arguing that the medium had become a form
of escapism that threatened the nation's ability to meet the challenge of
global Communism..."
I am really getting tired of this crap from you people,wtf is the point of
being armed if you cant shoot these crazy fucking baldheads?
