Date: Tue, 22  Jul  2003 11:11:37 -0400
From: "The American Civil Liberties Union" <belmonte@MIT.EDU>
To: "The American Civil Liberties Union" <belmonte@mit.edu>
Subject: stop the Terrorism Information Awareness project

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Message sent to the following recipients:
Representative Capuano
Message text follows:

Matthew Belmonte
[address]


July 22, 2003

[recipient address was inserted here]


 [recipient name was inserted here],

I urge you to support the defunding of the Terrorism 
Information Awareness program, formerly known as Total Information 
Awareness, or TIA. In its version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, 
the Senate cut funding entirely for this program -- a program that would 
indiscriminately track the daily activities of Americans or falsely 
identify thousands of innocent citizens as potential terrorists.

By collecting and correlating data on everyone, regardless of any grounds 
for suspicion, TIA would undermine current standards of privacy and 
freedom from unreasonable searches.

Curtailing everyone's privacy rights would be to capitulate, and to admit 
erroneously that human rights and human safety are mutually exclusive.  
Rather than curtailing human rights within the United States, the way to 
put a long-lasting stop to terrorism is to expand human rights in the 
impoverished nations whose desperation breeds terrorism.
 
Once again, I urge you to support the Senate language which would defund 
the so-called "Terrorism Information Awareness" program, formerly known as 
Total Information Awareness, or TIA.
 
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this crucial matter.

Sincerely,


Matthew Belmonte