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Outsourcing Big Brother: Office of Total Information Awareness
Relies on Private Sector to Track Americans  

By Adam Mayle and Alex Knott

The Total Information Awareness System, the controversial Pentagon 
research program that aims to gather and analyze a vast array of 
information on Americans, has hired at least eight private companies
to work on the effort. Since 1997, those companies have won contracts 
from the Defense Department agency that oversees the program worth 
$88 million, the Center for Public Integrity has learned.  

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which 
oversees the Total Information Awareness System (TIA), awarded 13 
contracts to Booz Allen & Hamilton amounting to more than $23 million. 
Lockheed Martin Corporation had 23 contracts worth $27 million; the 
Schafer Corporation had 9 contracts totaling $15 million. Other 
prominent contractors involved in the TIA program include SRS 
Technologies, Adroit Systems, CACI Dynamic Systems, Syntek 
Technologies, and ASI Systems International.  

TIA itself was first proposed by an employee of a private contractor. 
John Poindexter, who worked on DARPA projects for Syntek, an 
Arlington, Va.-based technical and engineering services firm, suggested 
the program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 
Poindexter, who headed the National Security Council during the 
Reagan administration, was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts for 
his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were overturned in 
1991 because he had been given immunity for his testimony during the 
congressional investigation of the affair. On Jan. 14, 2002, he returned 
to the government as the director of the Information Awareness Office.  

TIA draws heavily on the private sector. Five of the eight contractors 
identified by the Center are involved in evaluating future contracts
for the program. Grey E. Burkhart, an associate of Booz Allen Hamilton, 
identifies himself on his resume as "assistant project manager" of TIA 
system implementation. Even the phrase "Total Information Awareness" 
has a private pedigree - Visual Analytics, Inc., a Poolesville, Md.-based 
software developer and DARPA contractor, has applied for a trademark 
for the phrase.  

In addition, the Center found that at least 24 universities received 
almost $10 million during the last five years to do research on TIA-related 
projects. Some of the largest grants went to Cornell University, 
Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley and dealt 
with the TIA's language translation program, Translingual Information 
Detection, Extraction, and Summarization.  

"DARPA doesn't do any of its own research," Jan Walker, a spokeswoman 
for the agency, told the Center. She also said that DARPA doesn't require 
private contractors to share their research solely with DARPA. "The 
government benefits when there are commercial applications [from DARPA 
research] because it keeps the cost down," she said. Any limitations on 
commercial use are negotiated "on a case by case basis," she said, adding 
that, "Many of the things DARPA does have commercial applications."

DARPA employs 240 people and oversees a budget of roughly $2 
billion, according to its Website. It relies heavily on outside
contractors. Some act as "systems engineering technical assistance,"
or SETA contractors, who assist DARPA in "managing the efforts and 
representing the program with Congress, the Office of the Secretary 
of Defense, the military services and/or involved unified commander." 
Typical projects involve five to ten contractors, two universities,
and budgets between $10 and $40 million. DARPA's Website also notes 
that the best program managersuthe agency's employees who oversee 
the contractors - "have always been freewheeling zealots in pursuit
of their goals."

A lack of oversight  

Congress, which exercises oversight of the executive branch and the 
military, has not held a single public hearing on TIA and sources on 
the Hill suggested that members know little about it. In a Nov. 22, 2002, 
letter, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the inspector general of 
the Defense Department to "conduct a complete and thorough review of 
the TIA program." Noting that available information regarding TIA was
not sufficient, Grassley wrote that "[the Defense Department's] comments 
(about DARPA) only provide few answers and invite many more questions."

Grassley questioned the parameters and scope of TIA, how Poindexter 
was selected to head it, and what protections are in place to ensure
civil liberties are not violated.  

The Defense Department has not begun an inquiry. "They have it 
under consideration," Susan Hansen, a spokesperson at the Defense 
Department, told the Center. "I have not heard of any final decision 
about the status."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that she plans to introduce 
legislation to address any threats to the privacy rights of Americans
that TIA poses.  

Despite Congress' lack of knowledge about the program, the overall 
budget for TIA programs is increasing, and will nearly triple from
$43 million in fiscal year 2001 to $110 million in fiscal year 2003.
According to declassified budgets released recently from DARPA, some
projects that have existed since 1996 will receive similar spending
boosts now that the TIA office has been officially created. For
instance, a TIA project called Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment
grew from $6.8 million in fiscal year 2001 to $18.5 million in fiscal
year 2003.

An ongoing effort  

The stated goal of TIA, which began in the 2002 fiscal year, is "to 
revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and 
identify foreign terrorists - and decipher their plans - and thereby
enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat 
terrorist acts." To accomplish this, the program seeks to combine 
several kinds of information - financial, education, travel, medical, 
veterinary, transportation and housing transactional records; face,
finger print, and other identifying data - into databases.  

TIA draws heavily on other DARPA research projects that were ongoing 
long before Sept. 11, 2001. For example, Project Genoa, a computer 
program designed to rapidly analyze data, share it and develop plans 
based upon it, began prior to 1997 and was completed in the 2002 fiscal 
year. The Defense Intelligence Agency has agreed to use Genoa. A 
Genoa II project is underway at DARPA.  

Syntek was a contractor for the Genoa Project providing "specialized 
technical and programmatic" advice for more than five years. According 
to his resume - which had been posted on the home page of the 
Information Awareness Office (which oversees TIA) until it was removed 
in November along with the resumes of other IAO personnel - Poindexter
joined Syntek in 1996. The first documented reference to Syntek's 
involvement in Genoa indicates that the company began working for DARPA 
by mid-1996. Since 1997 Syntek received nine contracts from DARPA 
totaling $1.18 million. Poindexter worked for Project Genoa via Syntek 
through 2001 before returning to the Defense Department as the director 
of the Information Awareness Office (IAO).  

According to financial disclosure documents filed by Poindexter, 
before joining DARPA he earned $147,182 a year while working for 
Syntek. Poindexter worked closely with DARPA helping to develop Project 
Genoa, which is now a component of TIA. Under Poindexter's guidance, 
IAO will continue to use Syntek as a TIA contractor. He also reports 
receiving income for acting as a consultant to the U.S. Government 
for Syntek. These days, according to the Transactional Records Access 
Clearinghouse, Poindexter is receiving a salary of $138,200 - the
most of any DARPA employee and equal to the salary of DARPA Director 
Tony Tether.  

One month after he joined the board of directors of Saffron Technology 
in September 2000, the company announced it had received funding 
from DARPA for Genoa, which is now part of the TIA program.  

/CONT/

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