Robert L. Popp

Position: Deputy director, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Information Awareness Office Issue: Terrorism Information Awareness. This DARPA project, formerly known as Total Information Awareness, seeks better technologies to detect terrorist attacks but has roused the ire of privacy advocates.
Personal Point of Impact: Co-program manager, Terrorism Information Awareness

Technology Review: There have been wildly varying reports about what Terrorism Information Awareness seeks to do. Some groups opposed to the project have said it includes efforts to link public and private databases, with information ranging from consumer buying habits to medical records, into a giant "metabase." Is there any truth to this?
Robert Popp: First off, let's talk about what Terrorism Information Awareness, or TIA [TEE-ah], is. It's a visionary R&D program that is developing and integrating a variety of information technologies into a prototype system/network to detect and preempt foreign terrorist attacks. As technologists, we are trying to provide the foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism communities with prototype information technology that will lead to better collaboration, analysis, and decision-making. If we successfully transition these technologies to the operational agencies, we think government decision-makers will be empowered with knowledge about terrorist planning and preparation activities that will help them make informed decisions to prevent attacks from occurring against the United States.