Rep. Armey: Homeland Security Bill Does not Authorize TIA. Communications Daily reports that Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) said that the Homeland Security Bill "…does not authorize, fund or move into the department anything like it (Total Information Awareness)." He further stated that the use of data mining tools in the bill are "…intended solely to authorize the use of advanced techniques to sift through existing intelligence data, not to open a new method of intruding lawful, everyday transactions of American citizens." (Nov. 25)
Emphasis mine. This is a potentially a good use for this agency.
Contrary to a statement of a Defense Department spokesperson that the TIA budget is $10 million, DARPA documents show that it is $245 million for fiscal years 2001-2003.
Yeah, $10 million is diddly for that kind of a project. But I have a suggestion. Spend that $10 million to send 50,000 investigators to a basic class on how to write SQL queries - because a simple one would have identified the DC snipers' Caprice as a lead in their database. A lot of this stuff isn't rocket science.