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I was surprised to get an answer through email. Dick Durbin ALWAYS responds with a snail mail letter, never email. The guy probably hates me...he gets 2-3 letters a week from me. :) I have to keep him on his toes! I love my Senator.
Dear ** ******:
Thank you for contacting me about the proposed Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, subsequently renamed the Terrorism Information Awareness program. I appreciate hearing from you.
I share your concerns about this proposal. As we take steps to protect our nation from future terrorist attacks, we must ensure that our government does not erode the very freedoms we seek to defend.
I wrote to President Bush after this program was publicized to express my deep concerns about plans to develop and utilize data-mining software to probe a wide variety of private databases for information that might be considered relevant to the war on terrorism. The Defense Department's Terrorism Information Awareness program would use new data-mining technologies to sift through personal transactions in electronic data to find patterns and associations connected to terrorist activities. I urged President Bush to disavow any plan by the Department of Defense that would undertake the massive gathering of private data regarding U.S. citizens and ignore or override privacy protections.
Members of Congress from both parties, as well as many independent observers, share these concerns about the use of data-mining technologies for law enforcement or national security. The Fiscal Year 2004 Defense Appropriations Act, which President Bush signed into law in September 2003, prohibits further funding for the TIA program. This legislation also abolished the Defense Department's Information Awareness Office, which oversaw the TIA initiative. Our world changed following September 11, but our Constitution remains the same and continues to stand as the towering document guaranteeing our freedom. You can be sure I will continue to work to protect the essential civil liberties of Americans while we continue to fight for freedom from terror.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me. Please feel free to stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin United States Senator
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