White House protests cuts on terrorist data

The Bush administration is opposing language tucked inside a spending bill that strips funding of the Terrorist Information Awareness program and puts restrictions on future deployment of the data-mining computer system.

“This provision would deny an important potential tool in the war on terrorism,” said the statement of administration policy, issued by the president’s Office of Management and Budget this week.

“The administration urges the Senate to remove the provision that prohibits any research and development for the Terrorism Information Awareness [TIA] program,” the statement said.

The language is contained in the defense spending bill for fiscal 2004 and the Senate is expected to vote on the full bill this week. A similar version passed the House 399-19 on July 8.

The program is being designed by the Pentagon to track terrorists, but has been widely criticized by privacy advocates as a supersnooping computer system that threatens civil liberties.

No single member of the Senate Appropriations Committee is taking responsibility for the language that bans spending on any element of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program.

However, Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, originally authored a second provision requiring congressional approval before any aspect of the program can be deployed.

“Senator Wyden’s goal has always been for Congress to play the role that it should and that is to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans that Congress represents, while at the same time vigorously fighting terrorism,” said Carol Guthrie, Mr. Wyden’s spokeswoman.

The bill would also require congressional approval of what kind of data or information is ultimately run through the program to identify terrorist traits.

The project was originally called the Total Information Awareness program and will compile and sift through public and private records including financial and travel documents. The program is headed by retired Navy Vice Adm. John Poindexter.

The Senate version differs from the House version, which does not eliminate spending, so the final language will not be determined until a single bill is hammered out in a conference committee.

A staffer for the House Appropriations Committee said full funding was not axed because some lawmakers felt it was “worth at least exploring for the potential element of intelligence gathering with restraints.”

Mr. Wyden’s provision was first attached to this year’s omnibus spending bill and was included on the defense spending bill to ensure congressional oversight for the 2004 fiscal year.

That language required TIA to submit a report to Congress explaining the proposed technology and how it would be used. The report was delivered in May but raised new questions as to what kind of data would be used.

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