http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/opinion/13THU3.html?th
Editorial from today's NYTimes:
Shutting Down the Snoops
Amid the confusion and backdoor deals involved with finishing up the federal
government's nearly $400 billion appropriations bill, there have been bits
of good news. We're happy to note that the Senate and House conferees agreed
to impose severe restrictions on Total Information Awareness, a Pentagon
surveillance scheme concocted by John Poindexter that could have threatened
the civil liberties of ordinary Americans.
The program was designed to harness the vast networking powers of the
computer to collect information about individuals and groups, the theory
being that this would unearth suspicious patterns of behavior and help
investigative agencies anticipate terrorist acts. All the raw material of
ordinary life would be fair game for the project's computers ? credit card
transactions, telephone records, airline reservations and the like. Critics
feared an invasion of privacy on a huge scale. The fact that the program is
headed by Mr. Poindexter, the retired admiral who ran the Reagan
administration's illegal Iran-contra operation, reinforced those fears.
Virtually without dissent, the House conferees accepted a bipartisan Senate
provision written by Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Ron Wyden, an
Oregon Democrat, stipulating that the program cannot be used against
American citizens. The conferees also agreed to end research on the program
? in effect shutting it down ? in 90 days unless the Pentagon submits a
detailed report on the program's cost, goals, impact on civil liberties and
prospects for success against terrorists. What this means, in effect, is
that if the program continues at all, it will be as a low-intensity research
project under close Congressional supervision.
Congress made the right move. The only wonder is that the Pentagon allowed
the program to proceed as far as it did.
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
