Via AP, this article indicates that Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz communicated with Sen. Charles Grassley about an audit on a joint FBI-Pentagon plan to expand the TIA data mining program. The Senator stated in a letter to Attorney General Ashcroft, “I am very concerned that DOJ and the FBI may have been less than forthright to the press and the American people about their involvement with TIA.”
My previous post on the escalating tide of Congressional opposition to the TIA program is here. Further information on Congressional amendments opposed to data mining, including the one offered by Grassley as SA 53 to H.J. Res 2, is available in a PDF document here.
In related news, a recent New York Times article offers insight into the history and evolution of the increasingly controversial TIA program, its goals and objectives, and the mastermind behind the initiative, John Poindexter.