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By JOHN M. POINDEXTER

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The amount of data available to the federal government far exceeds the human capacity to analyze it. This has long been the case, but since 9/11 the need for better tools to help America fight the war against terror has become more urgent. Unfortunately, the Senate appears set to cancel financing for a promising and innovative set of technology programs that would help make America safe.

In January 2002 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is part of the Defense Department, established an Information Awareness Office to focus on technologies to help counter terrorism. We established a new research and development program, now called the Terrorism Information Awareness program, to test ways to find information faster, share information across agencies, aid in conducting analysis and enable better decision-making. The goal is to help the government "connect the dots" and prevent foreign terrorist attacks.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/opinion/10POIN.html

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