vigilant TV

The White House has announced a new project, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which appears to be a TIA-like data mining and information sharing effort between domestic and international law enforcement and spy agencies.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday about what information on Americans would be accessible to the TTIC. One government official with knowledge of the center, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not designed to supplant Poindexter’s efforts but was instead “an effort by the president to bring together elements of agencies that are focused on terrorism.”

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Ashcroft applauded the project in a statement distributed after Bush’s speech. “The TTIC will ensure that terrorist threat-related information is integrated and analyzed comprehensively across agency lines and then provided to the federal, state and local officials who need it most,” Ashcroft said. “We will be able to optimize our ability to analyze information, form the most comprehensive possible threat picture and develop the plans we need to prevent terrorist attacks.”

– CNet, Bush proposes antiterror database plan .

The White House fact sheet on TTIC appears to indicate that the effort will involve increased involvement by spy agencies in domestic surveillance.

The President announced that he has instructed the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, working with the Attorney General, and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense to develop the Nation’s first unified Terrorist Threat Integration Center. This new center will merge and analyze terrorist-related information collected domestically and abroad in order to form the most comprehensive possible threat picture.

Since September 11, 2001, our government has been working together and sharing information like never before. The creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center is the next phase in the dramatic enhancement of the government’s counterterrorism effort. The President has now directed his senior advisors to take the next step in ensuring that intelligence information from all sources is shared, integrated, and analyzed seamlessly—and then acted upon quickly.

– White House, Fact Sheet: Strengthening Intelligence to Better Protect America.