U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on the Data-Mining Moratorium Act From the Senate Floor January 16, 2003 Mr. President, I am pleased today to introduce the Data-Mining Moratorium Act of 2003. Like many Americans, I was surprised to learn during the last few months that the Department of Defense has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing a data-mining system called Total Information Awareness while permitting the progeny of Total Information Awareness to appear in places like the Department of Homeland Security. The untested and controversial intelligence procedure known as data-mining is capable of maintaining extensive files containing both public and private records on each and every American. Coupled with the expanded domestic surveillance already underway by this Administration, this unchecked system is a dangerous step forward and threatens one of the values that we're fighting for, freedom. The Administration has a heavy burden of proof that such extreme measures are necessary. The Data-Mining Moratorium Act of 2003 would immediately suspend data-mining in the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security until Congress has conducted a thorough review of Total Information Awareness and the practice of data-mining. Without Congressional review and oversight, data-mining would allow the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and other government agencies to collect and analyze a combination of intelligence data and personal information like individuals' traffic violations, credit card purchases, travel records, medical records, communications records, and virtually any information collected on commercial or public databases. Through comprehensive data-mining, as envisioned with Total Information Awareness, everything from people's video rentals or drugstore purchases made with a credit card to their most private health concerns could be fed into a computer and monitored by the Federal Government. Using massive data mining, like Total Information Awareness, the government hopes to be able to detect potential terrorists. There is no evidence that data-mining will, in fact, prevent terrorism. And when one considers the potential for errors in data, for example, credit agencies that have data about John R. Smith on John D. Smith's credit report, the prospect of ensnaring many innocents is real. This approach might also lead to the same kinds of so-called ``preventive'' detentions that are unconstitutional and put more than 1,100 individuals in jail after September 11. Although none of these people were ever charged with orchestrating or aiding the attacks, they were often held for months on end, and went for weeks without access to counsel. There is every reason to be concerned that uncontrolled data-mining systems would lead to the same abuse of power. The Administration's assurances that a data-mining system will not abuse our privacy rights ring hollow, particularly to those of us who questioned the breathtaking new Federal powers in the USA PATRIOT Act. We heard these same assurances when the Administration pressed for enactment of that sweeping legislation in the months after September 11th, that the government would act with restraint to ensure that its application of the Act would not infringe on our liberties. The opposite has turned out to be true. In fact, some of the most serious infringements on our personal freedoms in the USA PATRIOT Act can now contribute to the data-mining effort. The USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to compel businesses to produce records about people who had only a remote contact with a person sought in connection with an investigation of terrorism, including sitting on an airplane with the suspect, or having used the same payphone as the suspect. Under the PATRIOT Act, any business records can be compelled, including those containing sensitive personal information like medical records from hospitals or doctors, financial records, or records of what books someone has taken out of the liberary. This information is exactly the kind of data that data-mining programs like Total Infomration Awareness will use when compiling its files on the American people. The danger of data-mining is compounded not only by provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act, but also by the Administration's loosening of domestic surveillance restrictions for FBI agents last year, restrictions that were put in place following FBI abuses under J. Edgar Hoover. These various initiatives of the Administration are building on each other to give away more and more of our personal information, and give away more and more of our personal freedoms. It is reasonable to ask Americans to sacrifice some personal freedom like submitting to more extensive security screenings at airports. But should we allow the government to track our every move, from what items we purchase online, to our medical records, to our financial records, without limits and without accountability? I believe most Americans would say that that's a police state, not the America we know and love. We would catch more terroists in a police state. I don't doubt that. But that's not a country in which most Americans would want to live. Each time we have been told that government authorities would use restraint with its new powers, but Congress and the American people should not find comfort in these assurances, especially since they have been made by an Administration that has been operating in greater and greater secrecy. The Administration must suspend this massive data mining project until Congress can determine whether the proposed benefits of this practice come at too high a price to our privacy and personal liberties.

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