Senate Democrats Try To Stop Pentagon Data-Mining ProjectSenate Democrats Try To Stop Pentagon Data-Mining Project

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democrats, warning of a serious abuse of privacy rights, said Thursday they will try to shut down programs aimed at helping to identify potential domestic terrorists by amassing database information about people's lives.

The practice of data mining "threatens some of the very freedoms we are fighting to preserve," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., in outlining legislation that would impose a moratorium on programs within the Pentagon and the new Homeland Security Department to develop a huge database that intelligence and law-enforcement agencies could use in tracking suspects.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Defense Department has a budget of some $137 million this year to conduct research on a data-mining project known as Total Information Awareness.

Joining Feingold and Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has offered an amendment to a $390 billion spending bill for the current budget year that would cut off funds until Congress reviews the intentions of the programs. The Senate is debating that bill.

Wyden said he was confident of getting the votes of Republicans also concerned about privacy issues and the introduction of "virtual bloodhounds" capable of compiling records of a person's financial, travel, credit-card and health records.

The three Democrats were joined at a news conference by a range of interest groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Democracy and Technology, and, from the conservative side, the Americans for Tax Reform, the Eagle Forum, and the Free Congress Foundation.

Jan Walker, speaking for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the agency is involved in technology research and development and has no intention of collecting data on individuals.

She said the objective is to create better computer tools for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and that the data they are using in their experiments is either made up or information that the intelligence community can already obtain legally.

But critics said the data-mining program was a computerized version of Operation TIPS, a Justice Department initiative to encourage ordinary citizens to report suspicious activities. That program had to be shelved last year because of widespread opposition.

There's also been criticism of the Pentagon's choice of retired Rear Adm. John Poindexter to run the Total Information Awareness project. Poindexter was convicted of five felony counts in connection with the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were overturned on appeal.