Full Version: TIA Setback
This is the best news I've heard all week. 
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QUOTE
Senate Kills Funding for Pentagon Data Mining Program
By Roy Mark
January 24, 2003
The U.S. Senate Thursday decided on a voice vote to stop all funding for the controversial Defense Department program known as Total Information Awareness (TIA) until the Pentagon can prove to Congress the program does not violate the privacy rights of Americans.
Thursday's vote also prohibits the Pentagon from transferring the program to any other agencies in a back door bid for funding.
However, the measure is not yet law. The amendment is attached to a Senate spending bill and still must survive a joint House-Senate negotiating committee that will thrash out differences between the two bodies' budget proposals. After that, both the House and the Senate must then approve the deal between the negotiating committee before moving on to President George W. Bush for final approval.
By Roy Mark
January 24, 2003
The U.S. Senate Thursday decided on a voice vote to stop all funding for the controversial Defense Department program known as Total Information Awareness (TIA) until the Pentagon can prove to Congress the program does not violate the privacy rights of Americans.
Thursday's vote also prohibits the Pentagon from transferring the program to any other agencies in a back door bid for funding.
However, the measure is not yet law. The amendment is attached to a Senate spending bill and still must survive a joint House-Senate negotiating committee that will thrash out differences between the two bodies' budget proposals. After that, both the House and the Senate must then approve the deal between the negotiating committee before moving on to President George W. Bush for final approval.
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Bravo for the Senate!
I am not sure what worries me more.
1. The law was passed with this big brother system in it.
2. Poindexter was to be put in charge of it. Why don't our fall guys have to stay fallen?
1. The law was passed with this big brother system in it.
2. Poindexter was to be put in charge of it. Why don't our fall guys have to stay fallen?
See? Let the system work for us. It does and it will. Hang in there oh yee of little faith 
Congrats to the senate!
--cheers
Congrats to the senate!
--cheers
QUOTE(Digital Patriot @ Jan 24 2003, 02:37 PM)
See? Let the system work for us. It does and it will. Hang in there oh ye of little faith.
It ain't dead yet.
QUOTE(Wertz @ Jan 24 2003, 07:47 PM)
QUOTE(Digital Patriot @ Jan 24 2003, 02:37 PM)
See? Let the system work for us. It does and it will. Hang in there oh ye of little faith.
It ain't dead yet.
I'm not so sure about that, Wertz. I'm pretty sure we're seeing an end to it. I just wonder if anybody realizes exactly why they are killing it.
Could it be, perhaps, that our elected representatives are afraid of a power of the executive branch to spy on people, including themselves? Perhaps the message finally hit some of them that NO ONE would be exempt from this BLATANTLY unconstitutional invasion of everyone's privacy.
I think the former USSR had some policies akin to TIA, didn't it? It is mind-boggling how something like that would ever even be considered here in the US, in the first place. It is shameful that it even had to come this close to actually happening, before somebody woke up and thought to pull the plug on it. I'm glad that it happened, but deeply disturbed that it had to.
A rose by any other name......
The Constitution is still not safe from Bush.
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The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information....
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The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol for the last few months under the name of "the Patriot Act II" in legislative parlance.
snip
This proposed law, he added, "would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive 'suspicion,' create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups."
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snip
The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol for the last few months under the name of "the Patriot Act II" in legislative parlance.
snip
This proposed law, he added, "would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive 'suspicion,' create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups."
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The Constitution is still not safe from Bush.
Safety is always only relative, IMHO... However, while the powers Bush wishes to grant himself in the "sequel" are not subject to judicial review, the act that grants them is. No court in their right mind would uphold a power of the executive branch to suspend, on a whim, due process. (I hope!) 
QUOTE(Stefan Fargus @ Feb 7 2003, 11:10 PM)
Safety is always only relative, IMHO... However, while the powers Bush wishes to grant himself in the "sequel" are not subject to judicial review, the act that grants them is. No court in their right mind would uphold a power of the executive branch to suspend, on a whim, due process. (I hope!)
Agreed!!
what is to keep them from making TIA a ultra black operation with no congressional oversight (like much of the NSA) or from naming it something else altogether. and it is not completely dead, it may still become a part of the government. they will try some other way if it is killed anyway, bush and co. seems determined to create a police state.
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