Senate Bill Proposes Anti-Terror Database

[Khephra]

Civil Liberties Groups Express Concern

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2004; Page A04

Counterterrorism authorities would be granted unprecedented access to law enforcement and commercial databases containing billions of records about private citizens under a bipartisan bill to restructure the intelligence system that the Senate began debating yesterday.

The proposed national information-sharing network eventually would link hundreds or thousands of local, state, federal and commercial computers, according to the bill's language and congressional aides familiar with the intent of lawmakers. The new network would enable authorized investigators to draw on details about where suspects live, the cars they drive, their associates, their police records and their possible ties to terrorist activities.

The proposal, part of the Senate's version of the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, would be one of the most far-reaching changes in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But it has gone largely unnoticed amid intense debate over other proposed reforms, including creation of a national intelligence director and national counterterrorism center and House measures to beef up law enforcement powers and border controls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55175-2004Sep27.html