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$smarty->assign('title','Senator Tom Harkin\'s Letter to Senator Inouye');
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			<div id="featuretext">

<p>
    January 13, 2003
</p>

<p>
    The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye Chair, Subcommittee on Defense U.S.
    Senate Committee on Appropriations SD-119 Washington, DC 20510
</p>

<p>
    Dear Senator Inouye:
</p>

<p>
    I would like to request that the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee
    hold a hearing on the Total Information Awareness (TIA) project of
    the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In particular
    I think we should hear from Adm. John Poindexter, who proposed the
    project while working for Syntek, a DARPA contractor, and now
    directs DARPA\'s Information Awareness Office.
</p>

<p>
    The Total Information Awareness project raises serious issues of
    privacy violations and legality, the choice of its leadership, and
    appropriate use of Defense Department funds. The TIA system would be
    intended to identify terrorists before they act by using data mining
    techniques to find patterns in a vast integrated database of
    information on Americans. The DARPA website suggests the TIA system
    would use financial, education, travel, medical, veterinary, country
    entry, place/event entry, transportation, housing, critical
    resources, government, and communications records. According to
    Defense Undersecretary Pete Aldridge, it could potentially include
    every banking transaction, every credit card use, every visit to a
    doctor and prescription, and every phone call made by American
    citizens. Such a database has a frightening potential for abuse and
    would threaten our right to privacy. Because of that threat, such a
    government database would appear to be contrary to a number of
    privacy laws.
</p>

<p>
    The delicacy of this project and its potential for abuse would
    certainly call for the highest ethical standards of those who carry
    it out. Given his past, I think there is a real question whether
    Adm. Poindexter is an appropriate choice to lead this project,
    whether he is sufficiently sensitive to the need to limit government
    power or to the importance of strictly following laws.
</p>

<p>
    Pentagon officials have stressed that TIA for now is only a research
    project, and would be turned over to law enforcement and
    intelligence agencies for implementation. Thus it is not clear why
    DARPA is using defense funds for this project. In this regard it is
    important to note that the $10 million a year cost of TIA, as cited
    by Aldridge, covers only the integration of several programs that
    are funded separately. A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS)
    analysis found that the total budget for all the technology programs
    under the Information Awareness Office that are to be used in the
    TIA is $137.5 million in FY 2003. CRS projects that the cost of
    these programs for FY04-07 could be $575 million. This is a
    substantial use of defense funds for what would appear to be a law
    enforcement project.
</p>

<p>
    Because of these concerns, I think it is important for Congress to
    have an opportunity to hear from the man who developed and runs this
    project before we write next year\'s defense spending bill. In
    addition, I note that Congress has had difficulty getting
    information on the project from the Defense Department-I still have
    not received a substantive response to a letter on TIA I sent to
    Secretary Rumsfeld on December 5, 2002. I look forward to working
    with you to address these serious concerns.
</p>

<p>
    Sincerely,
</p>

<p>
    Tom Harkin United States Senator
</p>

<p>
Source: <a href="http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=189711">http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=189711</a>
</p>

			</div>
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