WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7A
Pentagon wants to mine personal privacy
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Possible FBI involvement in a high-tech Pentagon project that sifts through Americans' personal information raises new concerns about privacy and civil liberties. Sen. Charles Grassley said yesterday.
The Defense Department's inspector general, Joseph Schmitz, told Grassley, R-Iowa, in a letter that the FBI was working on a memorandum of understanding with the Pentagon "for possible experimentation" with the data-mining project.
Disclosure of FBI contacts regarding the Total Information Awareness project "only heightens my concern about the blurring of lines between domestic law enforcement and military
security efforts," said Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a frequent critic of the FBI.
Schmitz also told Grassley he would order an audit to help the Pentagon develop sufficient privacy safeguards that do not exist now to ensure the project has adequate protections for computer security and people's privacy.
The project, being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, would collect and mine huge amounts of data, including telephone records, credit card transactions, travel information and medical records.
The goal of the effort, headed by retired Rear Adm. John Poindexter, is to spot clues and patterns that possibly could identify would-be terrorists.
Grassley asked Attorney General John Ashcroft for detailed information about the possible involvement of the FBI and Justice Department and those agencies' potential uses of the information. Justice Department and FBI officials had no immediate comment yesterday.
The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from government watchdog groups and from some Democrats in Congress, who have proposed legislation to shut it down as a threat to Americans' privacy and civil liberties.
In the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks, the government already is using powerful new domestic wiretap and surveillance abilities.
"At a time when Americans are calling for more privacy of personal information, this program would provide a back door to databases of private information," said the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Eagle Forum and seven other watchdog groups last week in a letter to Congress.
In his letter to Ashcroft, Grassley said the FBI and Justice Department "may have been less than forthright" to the press and public about potential law enforcement uses of data collected and analyzed under the Pentagon project.
"We need to strike a balance between targeting terrorists with everything we've got and also protecting the rights and freedoms cherished by Americans," Grassley said. "Military dollars shouldn't be spent on domestic law enforcement."
Bush to increase federal spending
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush will propose boosting overall spending for federal agencies next year by 4 percent, less than half the growth expected this year, the White House budget director said yesterday.
The figure seemed to presage a battle over the coming months between Bush and congressional Democrats — and perhaps some Republicans — over whether his proposed increases for security at home and the wide range of other domestic programs are sufficient
Budget chief Mitchell Daniels provided few details, saying only that domestic security programs
would get the largest increases in the budget Bush releases next month, followed by defense and finally by agencies covering the rest of government. Domestic priorities will include veterans and education, he said.
In a conference call with reporters, Daniels said healthy increases for overall government spending in recent years made it "very realistic to slow down and in some cases digest a little bit the very large infusions that have been experienced in some quarters of government."
He cited the departments of Health and Human Services and Education as having grown substantially in recent years.
Though the government's current budget year began last Oct. 1, Congress has yet to complete 11 of the 13 spending bills that finance federal agencies. The stalemate has arisen because Democrats and some Republicans have felt that Bush short-changed homeland security, education and a host of other domestic programs. The president has sought to hold the line on spending at a time when massive federal deficits have returned.
Along with Bush, majority Republicans in the House and Senate are hoping to limit the 13 bills — including two covering the Pentagon — to $750 billion
this year. That could be 9 percent more than 2002.
Daniels said Bush would propose increasing the $750 million by 4 percent, just more than $30 billion, in his next budget.
"Even those accounts that cannot have the priority of winning the war on terror or defending the lives of Americans at home still will be amply funded" in the president's budget, he said.
Daniels said that after determining how much money would be needed for defense and domestic security, "the president settled on a guideline that the government's budget ought not increase by more than the typical American family."
Rumsfeld regrets offensive comments
The Associated Press
Rumsfeld issued the written apology shortly after three Democrats in Congress expressed outrage at his remark that draftees had added "no value, no advantage" to the U.S. military because they served for such short periods.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld apologized to veterans yesterday for comments he made on the military draft that he said had been misconstrained by some as disparaging their service.
The letter signed by Sens. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and John Kerry of Massachusetts and
Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois argued that Rumsfeld's remarks at a Jan. 7 Pentagon news conference were offensive to veterans.
"We are shocked, frankly, that you were apparently willing to dismiss the value of the service of millions of Americans, tens of thousands of whom gave their lives for their country in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam." they wrote.
Rumsfeld made his comments Jan. 7 in response to a reporter's question about an effort by some in Congress to reinstitute the draft. Rumsfeld said he saw no need for a draft because the all-volunteer system works better.
"If you think back to when we had the draft, people were brought in, they were paid some fraction of what they could make in the civilian manpower market because they were without choices," Rumsfeld said.
"Big categories were exempted
Big categories were exempted — people that were in college, people that were teaching, people that were married. It varied from time to time, but there were all kinds of exemptions. And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period
of time because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."
In his written apology yesterday, Rumsfeld said he had not meant to say drafttees added no value while they were serving. Rumsfeld said he had no intention of disparaging the service of draftees.
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