COMPUTER SUPERSNOOP: THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

As this article is written, the Homeland Security Act has already been passed by the House and Senate and is awaiting the signature of the President upon his return from Europe. The Act creates the new Department of Homeland Security, a new Cabinet-level department that will employ as many as 170,000 employees and pull together 22 federal agencies under one "roof", including the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Customs Service, and others. The new agency still only includes a small fraction of the 100 plus federal agencies involved in some manner with homeland security. The new Secretary is expected to be quickly appointed by the President, presumably it will be Tom Ridge. -- It will be the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

To be sure, the Homeland Security Act is a result of 9-11 events, and a follow-up to the USA Patriot Act, already in force to battle terrorism. The Homeland Security Act got a further boost in a related federal appeals court (Court of Review) ruling issued on November 18 in which a three-judge panel overturned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court challenging some USA Patriot Act provisions. The judges ruled that expanded government powers under the USA Patriot Act are "constitutional because the surveillances it authorizes are reasonable." - Attorney General John Ashcroft said the decision was "a victory for liberty, safety and the security of the American people."

Included in the Homeland Security Act are provisions against hackers and cyberterrorists with prison terms ranging from 20 years to life in prison. Section 225 of the Homeland Security Act includes the entire text of the "Cyber Security Enhancement Act" (CSEA), which previously passed the House as a free-standing bill.

Also of interest is the imposition of new visa rules for those coming from Saudi Arabia which will now require HSA (Homeland Security Agency) interviews with visa applicants for approval prior to U.S. entry.

As we advocated in our January editorial "National Security ID Card and Database Needed" (see 'Online Newsletter' January 2002 p.1), the Homeland Security Act's TIA database(s) would go way beyond the cohesion of government databases by also providing access to business, personal, medical, insurance, and virtually all aspects of Americans lives. Audrey Hudson's article "A Supersnoop's Dream" ('Washington Times' November 15, 2002) refers to one critic (William Safire) calling it just that: a "supersnooper's dream". That is because one of the provisions of the Act authorizes a "Total Information Awareness" (TIA) program, which would be run by the Pentagon, that is now being developed by DARPA (the agency that created the Internet). The Department of Homeland Security would create a similar DARPA-like organization called the "Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency" (HSARPA).

Of note, is that despite the TIA program, Section 815 of the Act specifically prohibits the new agency from developing a national security system or card. -- It would seem that Congress had some difficulty separating "apples from oranges".

The problem with TIA is that it is currently being run by former vice admiral John M. Poindexter, who was quietly assigned as program ...