Funding for TIA All But Dead

Shackleford writes "Wired has an article saying that the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies: death by legislation. The Senate's $368 billion version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, released from committee to the full Senate on Wednesday, contains a provision that would deny all funds to, and thus would effectively kill, the Terrorism Information Awareness program, formerly known as Total Information Awareness. TIA's projected budget for 2004 is $169 million."

Comments

Long Road Ahead

[dtolton]

At least they are putting some strong language into this version of
the bill "No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the
Department of Defense ... or to any other department, agency or
element of the Federal Government, may be obligated or expended on
research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness
program."

If the full senate doesn't approve this bill, the entire issue is
pretty much stillborn. Assuming they approve it though, there are
still several more steps for it to go through.

The main concern at this point is what happens when the bill goes to
committee. This process has always held concerns for me, but it
worries me that whether or not the defunding stays in the bill or not
is so dependant on one person. "The defunding has a chance of
surviving committee " Schwartz says "If Stevens is behind it, then it
almost certainly will happen.". I would have felt more comfortable if
he had said "It will almost certainly succeed."

Let's just hope he's behind defunding it. Removing the defunding
would completely remove the teeth from this bill IMO.

I also didn't see any comments from President Bush. As I understand
it, he is supportive of the TIA. Will he sign a bill that is going to
kill one of his pet projects? Again, let's hope so.

There are still a lot of steps for this bill to go through before it
becomes law. Progress is being made, but let your senator know that
you are against TIA, and maybe this bill will make it.

Info ...

[Arthaed]

An Executive Summary of TIA released by DARPA is available here. An explanation and overview of TIA, again by DARPA, can be found here.

well...

[ed.han]

except i have one question: what if they simply rename the darned thing? it's only $169 million: in beltway terms, this isn't a whole lot of money.

what worries me is that this could sneak into some other omnibus legislation through a rider under a different and more innocuous name, under a last-minute change to another bill before congress.

i fear this may become a senatorial shell-game.

ed

Re:well...

[TopShelf]

Even sneakier, development on this could be pursued by a private agency, betting on the commercial prospects once it has been proven out.

Imagine the value of a centralized database that gathers together just public information about people, let alone private. Basically, it would become an automated mini-private eye service, which could mined for all sorts of useful information.

Just because this might not survive the Congress doesn't mean the idea won't be pursued...

Re:well...

[2short]

"The top level super secret shit is called 'black projects'".

People call various levels of secret things "black projects", particularly in the movies. I'm willing to bet that "top level super secret shit" is called a variety of things, and you don't know any of them.

"Funding for black projects doesn't come through washington, and isn't controlled by congress."

Then it doesn't come from tax dollars, and I don't care.

"Nobody knows *where* the funding for a black projects come from, but there is a ton of it."

Maybe it comes from magic elves! Of course someone knows where it comes from. Several someones in congress know where it comes from because they approve it. Just because they don't tell you doesn't mean they don't know. And while it may be officially secret how much is spent on various secret projects, it's not exactly hard to figure out the general outlines. For example, a significant chunk of secret spending is buried in the Air Force budget. (The Air Force buys a bunch of really expensive things, frequently with perfectly good reasons to be quiet about them, so confusing the issue of just how much really expensive stuff they bought is not too hard.)

Re:well...

[Slime-dogg]

There is a provision in the DoD funding specifically for black ops. Senate knows that there *is* money going into them, although they all know that there is no way that they will know what the money is spent on. For all we know, TIA has been a thriving force since 1980.

All money for government goes through the house, regardless of what people may think. The military / CIA / NSA need to request funds from congress in order to do their operations. These funds end up looking like "Monkey Wrench" and "Toilet Seat," because these are good non-descriptive words that act as substitutes.

The wording of the bill is interesting, however, since it doesn't specify what can get the money, rather is specifies what cannot get the money. This way, congress can limit what the intelligence department can do with the money, without them actually knowing what they really are doing.

Re:well...

[BrynM]

Steps to funding Black Ops
1. Start Super-Classified Government Project
2. ????
3. Profit!
4. Fund Super-Classified Government Project with step 3

Great

[mao che minh]

It looks like the terrorists won, all because a few million Americans didn't want some new shadowy government agency perusing their most confidential records. How un-American.

Of course, they would never ...

[burgburgburg]

go around the intent of Congress and use "black" funds to support widespread domestic spying. That would be wrong.

I'm sleeping easier now.

Dead but not forgotten

[Fux the Pengiun]

Don't worry, it'll be back. Check the article:

The Senate bill's language is simple but comprehensive: "No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense ... or to any other department, agency or element of the Federal Government, may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program."

The program just got bad press is all, as many alarmists who shrieked loudly about "civil liberties" shouted down the program's supporters. The same work will still be done, just by different departments under a different name. It says "no funding will go to the TIA", but it doesn't say the essence of the TIA won't live on in another agency's budget. I don't think it's entirely a bad thing either...just so long as they don't go too far. I don't care if they want to see my credit history, just not my Safeway preferred customer card spending habits. That shit is sacred.

Re:Dead but not forgotten

[HBI]

Actually, consider this program as a lightning rod. With all the vitriol spewed in Poindexter's direction, wonder what else slipped in under the radar.

It's a move worthy of say, a Karl Rove, don't you think?

Ashcroft not completely the bad guy here.

[PHAEDRU5]

Think about it: he's got a threat out there with a demonstrated ability to perform mass killings, and he'd prefer not to die in a fireball of aviation fuel. Neither would his boss, his boss' replacement, nor any of his immediate colleagues.

Meanwhile, his former colleagues are hounding him because he still doesn't really have a good answer on who mailed the anthrax.

If I ever saw a man grasping for straws, Ashcroft's that man. I think I understand where he's been coming from in all this (ever been hounded by QA and PHBs?), and I feel for him.

Even so, I'm glad TIA is dead.

Re:Ashcroft not completely the bad guy here.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Think about it: he's got a threat out there with a demonstrated ability to perform mass killings, and he'd prefer not to die in a fireball of aviation fuel. Neither would his boss, his boss' replacement, nor any of his immediate colleagues.

Utterly irrelevant. You can only do the 9/11 trick once. After that, hijacking a plane becomes suicide by violent business executive. More to the point, none of this TIA crap would help catch terrorists. What would have worked is if we listned to the warning signs (flight school with concerns about a student who only needs to know how to steer planes, killing an FBI investigation because it got too close to the Saudi royal family) and, perhaps, stop funding these guys ourselves (both Saddam and OBL were our buddies back in the 80's. Of course we could also stop being so belligerent with the rest of the world, but that'll never happen with Bush the lesser in office.

Re:Ashcroft not completely the bad guy here.

[XSforMe]

AC troll wrote:

but it just wouldn't work.
Well, why not try it? Most of the 19th century the U.S. kept to itself. Guess how many 9/11's it had to withstand.

Surprise, some countries/people would still detest the USA.
That is a reasuring reason, glad you are around with your crystal ball to tell us this things.

Do you really think al-Qaeda would stop planning attacks if we pulled out of the Mid-East?
Try pull out of Mid-East and stop funding Israel. That should work.

Of course not, the fundamentalists would just continue their brutal ways while having the freedom to attack the USA at will.
Then again, you might be right... get that TIA on the road, spy on everybody, think of the rest of the world as terrorist, bomb the hell out of inocent countries, finance any/all subversive groups of any government you dislike. I am sure the rest of the world loves to be addressed in that fashion.

Nervous Senators?

[creative_name]

Hmmm...maybe the Senators were all nervous that a lot of them would be exposed for their own personal "un-American" activities. Ahha! I figured it out!!

Why is there a black car in front of my house...

The TIA subjected to Slashdot mods

[Qinopio]

the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records

(this government has been rated -1, Troll)

Looks like 1984...

[robogun]

... has been put off for a little while. But it will come. Sorry, guys, but that's just the nature of information tech. The gov't is not needed for this.

Once info is collected, it can be collected, archived, sold under the table or social-engineered out of you or your bank's representative.

Then, it is simple a matter of storage. Even now, the credit records of all consumers in the United States can be fit onto a single hard disk (assume a 200mb disk, 200 million consumers, and 1000 bytes per record).

Not much can be done about that, except a Butlerian Jihad.

interesting

[SubtleNuance]

Interesting that "Funding for TIA All But Dead" is the tag on a $169 MILLION budget. Really, I'd say that $400 was the long shot, and the $169 was the "awww shucks, i guess we'll be real thrifty and carefull with this new project and only spend $170 Million". The TIA project is sadly offensive in a USA where the whole shebang is getting budgeted on BORROWED money. Either people have to sit up and decide to pay their taxes for this jibberish or they need to ease up on the Orwellian Nightmare Funding Project... aka TIA.

Maybe they can put this TIA thing back a year and do something about the crumbling inner-city-Detroit, or poor without food/healthcare, or some-other-more-worthy-project.

Really, even with that said, who really thinks that the DoD/CIA/NSA/FBI couldnt come up with the money (even in *addition* to what they spend now) to fund such a project. Dont think just because they are *reporting* to be less serious about it; "hey look - were cutting its funding - its not a priority (since you were so offended..)", this Stasi-Like crap is only gonna get more severe as your country slips into a deeper self-induced paranoia/schitzophrenia... and Bush is driving the bus.

Re:interesting

[Politburo]

who really thinks that the DoD/CIA/NSA/FBI couldnt come up with the money

That's just it. For the most part, they can't do things like this because spending is allocated by Congress. Money isn't just thrown out as "400$ million for FBI" and that's it. The expenditures are broken down, and aside from some DoD/Military spending, mostly public. Note that Congress still maintains oversight of this spending, it is just not public, for security reasons. This is how many leaks about the F-117 and B-2 projects came out; through Congressional offices that had oversight on the project.

The Federal Budget is a law passed by Congress every year. Agencies cannot just reallocate the money as they see fit. This "Power of the Purse" is probably the greatest power that the Congress currently has. It has used this power to enact a national drinking age, by witholding highway funds to states that don't comply. I believe it was also used recently against states with medicinal marijuana laws, but could not find an article confirming this.

The people suggesting that this program will just "reappear" are misguided, not "insightful". No agency would attempt to piss off Congress like that. The TIA is dead for FY2004, assuming the bill passes unmodified. Whether it stays dead will remain to be seen.

The TIA is dead, Long live the TIA

[Rares Marian]

It will be funded under plan B. The one where they remember to put the clause, "It's for the children."

OF COURSE!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Yes, this is true. No money "on the books." A perfect "end".

But do you really think TIA will really end? The project will simply go, as they call it, "Dark". When the F-117 was being made, in a project called, I believe, "Deep Blue" do you think money that was on the books was used? No. TIA will "die" in the public, because the project is going dark. End of story. The website will remain the scrappy little inocent bits of HTML it is today, meanwhile under a lake somewhere will be a cluster of computers that are running TIA at full speed.

Re:name change?

[jobugeek]

How about Thanks In Advance....for removing all your civil liberties. See, they don't even need to change the letters.

Perhaps ...

[DogIsMyCoprocessor]

a better choice of words than "troll" would be "attempt to data mine". From "troll" I get a picture of the government anonymously inflaming me by mocking my spending habits.

Re:The project will just use hidden funding.

[Zathrus]

The TIA is a rather high-profile project that needs some access to some pretty heavily watched data sources. You could, in theory, still do all of it in the black, but you're going to need a ton of people to be in on it. And unlike Iran-Contra, this time those people are in country.

That's what it would be, after all... a whole new Iran-Contra scandal, but with much more clear (il)legalities. And while Ashcroft would certainly be first in line, it's questionable that Bush would be able to insulate himself from an illegally funded project that he supported.

It's much more likely that it'll die and be resurrected again in a couple years under a different name.

But thank you for the paranoia all the same.

Re:It's not dying,

[Rahga]

"Doesn't mean the government can't spy on them, it simply means they can't spy on them openly. Nothing has changed, TIA will continue. I'm living happily in Canada, thank God."

I agree 100%. Down here in America, individuals have to pay good, hard money to treat mental illnesses like paranoia. At least Canada has those glorious socialized medicine programs.

John Poindexter does his own funding

[babykong]

TIA is run by John Poindexter who was involved in Iran Contra. Iran Contra was a method of bypassing the need to use congressional funding for the Contras by selling arms to Iran and using those funds to do the Job.

These people can generate their own funds, possibly by selling some of the valuable information they collect to various marketing organizations. With the death of investigative reporting, who is going to catch them this time?

I think I can fill in this blank.

[Dr Reducto]

"Wired has an article saying that the Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies:" Im pretty sure the end of this reads Moderation, since they even say they are trolling.

Re:John Ashcroft

[(startx)]

Absolutely nothing. Why do you think he was free to be appointed to the position in the first place? We (the citizens of Missouri) elected a dead man, rather than give Ashcroft another term in the Senate.

Imagine...

[Schezar]

You made me think...

Imagine (HYPOTHETICALLY!) if the the US Government actually -had- orchestrated 9/11 (or knew about it and allowed it to happen) as part of a larger scheme.

Now imagine if the public at large found out. If there were undeniable proof.

What would happen? How would middle-class America react? That would be the ultimate test of the unity of the American people. Would they actually -do- something about it? Or would the spin-doctors win?

If only there were a World-Sim(tm) I could use to watch something like that unfold.

I will mourn it deeply...

[Stephen Samuel]

.... but first I must go dance on it's grave.

It was just software, code in cyberspace...

[macshune]

"Everyone thought the TIA was just another Big Brother wetdream, until the machines came. TIA became self-aware on July 27th, 2006. Within one hour, every American had a terrible credit rating and 16 orders of penis enlargment pills on the way to their homes. Panic ensued. The next day, utilzing the power of that spyware program in Kazaa, TIA appropriated millions of computer do to one thing: hack the U.S. millitary. Within 48 hours, TIA changed its name to SkyNet after trolling on the imdb for a more suitable name. I immediately logged onto slashdot and told everyone what I knew. But only the trolls were left. Then I realized I came to slashdot not to warn people, but to survive."

stop using 911

[asscroft]

I'd like to go one day without hearing someone use 911 to justify some sort of crazy bullshit that never would be allowed otherwise.

"I'm sorry, but since 911 we just can't play by the same rules, therefore I'm going to have to rape your mom. If you don't let me you're un-American and the terrorists will win. You DO NOT want to go to guantanamo, do you? Good. Get the rope, please"

comeoff it. Meanwhile, anyone who dares question our response to 911 or any of these decisions "justified" by 911 is "disgracing the memories of the victims and insulting their families and all patriots of america"

how nice, you have it both ways.

well, in tribute to the popular drinking/card game:
BULLSHIT!

10 lines of truth
1. Flight 93 was shot down by US fighters- justifiably so.
2. Iraq was and still is only about oil.
3. TIA is about spying on Americans.
4. The Partiot act is unconstitutional.
5. The DMCA is an overreaching easily manipulated bad law stifling innovation and driving technology out of America.
6. Trickle down sucks if you aren't at the top.
7. "Support the troops" does not mean cheer as they go to die and kill while simultaneously reducing their benefits.
8. Israel isn't always right. Sometimes 2 wrongs make 2 wrongs.
9. Despite listing these truths, I am not a terrorist.
10. Fox is biased.

Re:Don't worry,

[nanojath]

Yeah, don't forget that John Poindexter is in charge... he's an old hand at, um, unconventional funding of "special" government projects. Maybe his old buddies in the CIA can help him move a little ultra-pure heroin from our new buddies, the warlords of Afghanistan.

Go ahead and mod it funny... I wish it was more of a joke.