Pentagon confirms 'snooping' system
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Pentagon yesterday confirmed that a high-tech data-collection system that will monitor credit-card transactions and airline ticket purchases,
described by critics as "a supersnoop's dream," is being created to thwart terrorist attacks.
Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and a retired Navy admiral, said the program, Total Information Awareness
(TIA), is an "experimental prototype" that will attempt to search "vast quantities of data to determine links and patterns indicative of terrorist
activities."
Critics have charged that the program will give the Defense Department the power to conduct research into the personal habits of Americans.
The program is being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is headed by retired Adm. John Poindexter, the
national security adviser during the Reagan administration who was convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were
overturned on appeal.
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