HOUSE AGREES TO DARPA CUTS

Last week, Defense Tech reported that the Senate was looking to cut off funding for most of Darpa’s Information Awareness Office — the group of minds, formerly headed by John Poindexter, that was responsbile for the Total Information Awareness uber-database and the “terror market” mess.
Now, the House has agreed to the Senate’s position, notes Associated Press writer — and Defense Tech pal — Mike Sniffen. And so it looks like many of the creepiest Pentagon surveillance programs will have their purse-strings cut — or will at least be driven to the classified side of the Pentagon ledger.
THERE’S MORE: Some of the less creepy Darpa programs, previously cut by the Senate, have now been restored. The $35 million Continuous Assisted Performance program — an attempt to help soldiers go long periods without sleep — is back, for example. Now, according to one of the scientists working on the effort, its budget has been cut only by a sixth, the $24 million.
AND MORE: Darpa’s information technology research budget should be boosted, according to a new report from the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.

September 25th, 2003 | News | Comments Off