House of Reps. Passes Act To Limit TIA Powers

WigginX writes "As part of the 2004 Defense Appropriations Act, approved yesterday by the House of Representatives, no government agency may implement any part of Terrorism Information Awareness (formerly Total Information Awareness) without authorization from Congress. The Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy has mirrored the text of the provision."

Comments

YEAAAHH!

[wizarddc]

YAHOOO!

What more can we say? This is a good thing. Although, this still leaves the measures in the act usuable, just whoever wants to use them needs to apply a little extra grease to the gears now.

Re:YEAAAHH!

[neitzsche]

Ummm, doesn't this require Georgie-Porgie's signature to become law? Is there ANY chance he'd ever sign anything remotely like this?

Re:YEAAAHH!

[Stephen Samuel]

Don't scream too loud, until you read the fine print. TIA is deployable now, but (in theory) only against foreign nationals in the US or anybody who leaves US soil.... I.E.

• if you go to the Bahamas or Mexico for a vacation, you're fair game until you get back home.
• If you've got a green card, you're also fair game and
• if you get mistaken for a foreigner, they'll just say "oops".

Good/bad/ugly?

[Zeriel]

First poster said it all in terms of my gut reaction--woohoo!

On the other hand, Adm. Poindexter also was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, which was ALSO specifically forbidden by Congress. So I'd keep a close eye on things just the same, despite the legislation in place--which is an important step, don't get me wrong.

Re:Good/bad/ugly?

[ReaperOfSouls]

When it comes the exectutive branch, the congress has been effectively neutered. An excellent example is Gulf War II: the clone of the attack, or for that matter Vietnam. Basically the president can attack and occupy another country with out even getting the approval of the Congress. Last time I checked, the senate and only the senate had a right to declare war on another contry.

Oh wait, those were not wars, they were police actions, thats right. In all honesty, the senate did declare war on Iraq, but only as a rubber stamp for the president after it was clear that he was going to invade regardless of their approval.

Basically regardless of the approval of congress, any government program that operates in the shadows, out side the scope of the public view has no place in a free society.

Re:Good/bad/ugly?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI
Vietnam and gulfwar 1/2 were both approved by congress
post your crap somewhere else

Re:Good/bad/ugly?

[ReaperOfSouls]

Only as a rubber stamp after words.

shouldn't congress be the lawmakers?

[cheezus]

Post 9/11* showed me something I hadn't realized before: the power of the executive branch. I never really knew that the administation could do whatever they wanted unless congress actively stopped them from doing it.

* why is it called 9/11 (September 11th or the even more annoying "nine-eleven") instead of WTC, or 2001 hijackings, or something else. We don't call Pearl Harbor 12/7. Sorry for the rant, just becoming a pet peeve of mine.

Re:shouldn't congress be the lawmakers?

[Asprin]

Probably because of the association with 911 - the US standard emergency telephone number. It's like a distress signal of sorts, like "S-O-S". Read into it what you will.

Re:shouldn't congress be the lawmakers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to say and remember. It's not a fucking conspiracy, it's a couple numbers. Get the fuck over it.

Re:shouldn't congress be the lawmakers?

[stefanlasiewski]

I think it's called '9/11' because most labels don't address the scope of the disaster.

WTC

Calling it "WTC" ignores the crash at the Pentagon as well as Flight 93.

or 2001 hijackings

Again, this misses the scope of the disaster. It was more then some hijackings. Suicide Bombings? Attacks? Disaster?

We say "D-Day", we say 4th of July to refer to other signifigant events. "September 11th" make sense in a similar way.

Good? Bad? Just neutral?

[captainktainer]

It's a nice sentiment... but honestly, I don't think it'll do much good. Congress has a bad habit of tacking on things in amendments without people caring about it. After the furor dies down, it'll be quietly authorized and all this effort will have been for nothing.

I'd also like to point out that the White House may well decide to authorize it anyway using an executive order, since this administration agrees with Gephardt on the issue of executive supremacy. Because the CIA, NSA, and FBI are executive agencies, the White House may be able to authorize the project anyway under a different name and tell Congres to go shove itself. Constitutionally shaky, yes, but very possible in today's civil liberties-impaired legal system.

That being said, I grant conditional respect to many House Republicans and Democrats alike for speaking out against the TIA. Even if this provision is merely a postponement of the inevitable, I am grateful for every moment of precious liberty.

Does this really mean anything?

[GuyMannDude]

While it's tempting to jump for joy, I'm not sure this is really anything meaningful. Remember that TIA ia a DARPA program, meaning that it's technology that is still very much in its infancy. TIA probably wouldn't be able to be rolled out for several years yet just because it hasn't been developed, yet alone tested, yet. True, whenever it finally IS ready for action they'll need to get congressional approval but who knows what the world will be like then? Hell, maybe this action will be repealed between now and then!

In short, I'm not sure this is much to celebrate. It seems like an attempt on the part of congress to reassure the public without actually putting any meaningful constraints on DARPA or the TIA program.

GMD

Re:Does this really mean anything?

[n-baxley]

It seems like an attempt on the part of congress to reassure the public without actually putting any meaningful constraints on DARPA or the TIA program.

Well, it is doing just that. If we assume for a minute that Congress critters are trying to what's best for the nation, work with me here. Then if people are starting to panic about the TIA, when we all know they couldn't possibly do anything meaningful in the short term, Congress is doing us a favor by passing this bill to put those people who don't realize that the TIA cann't get anything in place in time.

In short, if all this bill does is calm people's fears over something that isn't an immediate threat then it still serves a purpose.

911

[cheezus]

yeah, I thought about that... but 9/11 is always nine-eleven, whereas for the emergency phone number I've always heard nine-one-one.

I wonder if perhaps it was done intentionally to get us to remember the attacks at least once a year. People say "remeber Pearl Harbor" or "remember the Alamo", but when the event is named by it's date... well, at least it's easy to remember when it happened!

Re:911

[JGag21]

The only reason it's called 9/11 and not a short name like "Pearl Harbor" or "The Alamo" is because:

a)How can we shorten it?
"Remember The World Trade Center?"
"The Bombing or the Planes?"
"The Planes."
"Yeah...... we wont forget that."
b)No one is creative enough now a days to think of something memorable.
c)If we think of a good name for that tragedy, the terrorists win.

Does "implement" include "purchase"?

[deanpole]

Does "implement" include "purchase"? Is the government prohibited from funding development or puchasing services from a private company that does the same thing?

Java ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm always wondering why doesn't people use Java for such large developments... If tomorrow TIA is declared illegal because of the Constitution (very unlikely though), you just reinstall FreeBSD on Intel DRM hardware so congress can't tell what you doing and keep on going.

Multi-platform is an invaluable freedom on such projects where deployment and operating costs are so high
*.sig: No such file or directory

Constitutional Ammendment

[isorox]

OK, the U.S. Constitution means swaut to the current regime, however wouldnt a good privacy ammendment to the constitution be a good idea?

Re:Constitutional Ammendment

[wcbarksdale]

It wouldn't accomplish much. Constitutional guarantees of basic freedoms mainly affect the Supreme Court, which has already recognized an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution (i.e. the Founders thought it was too obvious to bother writing in).

Re:Constitutional Ammendment

[Ykant]

(i.e. the Founders thought it was too obvious to bother writing in)

Apparently, it isn't so obvious anymore, is it?

Iran Contra Redux

[Radical Rad]

Well put. As you pointed out, this only forbids using the money specifically appropriated in this bill, it doesn't prevent domestic spying on Americans funded by other sources such as black box money or 'private' sources such as Reagan/Bush's secret sales of missiles to Iran right after they held Americans hostage for 444 days. But I also think it is a step in the right direction even if it is only paying lip service to Liberty. Maybe it is at least a sign that the pendulum's swing is slowing.

Re:Constitutional Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

How about something simple, but inclusive, like:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"