Data-mining guru calls for privacy protection.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Washington PULSE

One of the architects of the much-ridiculed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's "total information awareness" system says it's time for the U.S. government to invest in protecting the privacy of citizens' personal data.

Robert L. Popp, who helped conceive TIA in 2002 while working at DARPA with retired Adm. John Poindexter, says the government should be able to obtain information to combat terrorism, but it should do more to ensure privacy rights are not violated. TIA, which Congress killed in 2003, was a data-mining system intended...