"Runaway" I know I'm going to regret accusing you of this much subtlety, but you're not referring to Al Qaeda when you use the word "database" are you? In fact, you have no idea what I'm taking about. "The base?" 
Hello? Any lights on? I didn't think so. 

What scares me is the flag-waving-moron demographic. (Yes I'm still taking to you, "Runaway".) The ones that operate on blind patriotic faith... They accept any indignity, any violation of rights or other criminality, just so long as nationalistic pride gets invoked. They believe in a loving government run by perfect men and women whose minds are cloudless skies where thoughts of bribery, blackmail and insider trading are as rare as an honest politician. 

"...a growing menace on many fronts." Rank stupidity? There does seem to be a lot of it.

jeez I really dont' get what is wrong with you guys.

Are you seriously terrified of a database? 
Are you seriously terrified of a database? 
Are you seriously terrified of a database? 
Are you seriously terrified of a database? 
Are you seriously terrified of a database? 
Are you seriously terrified of a database? 

This is just the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life.

God damn democrats are going to ruin the whole country!

Our country needs to do everything in it's power to defeat a growing menace on many fronts.

And you guys are scared of a database? 

I'm really not so sure-- that $11mn is a drop in the bucket. As a top-notch database architect-- I think that I could get rich building it myself for $11mn. I mean-- a handful of pages, a handful of db servers-- I personally think that I could build amazon.com for $11mn.



"But NSAC already has 33 employees and a budget of $47.5 million as of FY2007. The FBI is asking for 66 more NSAC employees and a total FY2009 budget of $78.7 million."

33 people with $47.5million, roughly $1.5mil each.

66 people and $78.7mil between them, so looks like the noobs will be on $1mil each. Poor noobs, the noobs always get ripped off!

A fine article by the recently much-maligned Inq team, but I agree that the purpose of NSAC being obnoxious was to ensure the project stays "grey" away from any oversight and able to spy on anyone they want. Incidently, have you noticed how these government projects always have a name that is the complete opposite of what they actually do? eg. "Patriot Act" was actually concerned with destroying rights and freedoms... while this "Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force" is clearly aimed at *domestic* tracking of regular citizens.

There should be a syndicated action-drama TV series about this: 

THE GAO
A QUINN MARTIN-WARNER BROS PRODUCTION

Tonight's Episode
"Talking smack = Budget whack"

Wandering's right. This is a red herring. $11M is front pocket money. That much probably wouldn't fund a Microsoft Office upgrade for a single department, let alone some life-altering all-encompassing database of the whole country.

but the question is:

Who will be watching the watchers?


How else will they pay for the Men In Black?

Smart move... from the FBI.

The project probably flopped greatly, and instead of having admit that they can just stay spooky and mysterious, while never revealing the mess up. Touché.

They should just find some pre-cogs and get them to sniff out those terror ppl before they do anything. since that is where this country is moving towards anyways.

That $11 million may seem large to us mere mortals, but it only a flyspec on their budget. Nothing has changed, and the program will proceed, and the fund will come from some other budget or budgets that did increase.
It isn't enough to cut off funds that are apparantly earmarked for a purpose, but you have to cut off the head of the beast to kill it.

Agreed. It is reprehensible for ANY government agency to consider itself outside the purview of our elected representatives. Orwellian indeed! In fact, the argument could be made that such refusal could be considered tratorious.

Who's going to cut Google's funing when it does the same thing, but with more competence?