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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."
At least they are putting some strong language into this version of ... or to any other department, agency or
the bill "No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the
Department of Defense
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.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
An Executive Summary of TIA released by DARPA is available here. An explanation and overview of TIA, again by DARPA, can be found here.
Unique signatures are rare.
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
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.
I'm sleeping easier now.
Consensual sex is boring.
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...
Posting as directed.
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.
It will be funded under plan B. The one where they remember to put the clause, "It's for the children."
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
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.
How about Thanks In Advance....for removing all your civil liberties. See, they don't even need to change the letters.
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
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.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
"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.
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?
Question Reality
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.
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.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
"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."