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

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.