TIA lives!
USA Today searched through public information on government contracts, reported that Bush’s “Total Information Awareness” program—supposedly killed by Congress in 2003—has survived:
At least five of the data-mining programs were developed under a Pentagon program, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), that Congress disbanded nearly three years ago because of concerns that it threatened personal privacy, according to government records and participants in the projects.President Bush and administration officials say the searches for terrorists' trails follow the law and don't invade Americans' privacy.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center, observes that "The key problem here is the absence of accountability." Given Bush’s allergy to accountability, that’s quite a problem indeed.
(Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the tip.)