The Total Information Awareness Office has been the most controversial of the Act's provisions. A Pentagon (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA) project legalized by the Homeland Security Act, TIA was given a startup budget of $200 million, and a mandate to achieve a state of "Total Information Awareness." Admiral John Poindexter, who was convicted of lying to Congress about his central role in the Iran Contra affair, was placed in charge of the IAO.
Poindexter had plans to create 300 million computer dossiers, a file for every American, which would serve as repositories for data "mined" from both public and private sources, including detailed information on transactions, finances, education, medical history, travel, personal communications, and public records from every branch of government, including the CIA and FBI. Programs were also underway to employ facial recognition and "gait recognition" technologies.
However, John Poindexter was widely criticized as an inappropriate selection for the post of IAO director, because of his criminal record. He resigned in August of 2003, amid a scandal around his involvement in a plan to launch an online futures system for betting on Middle East developments, advertised as a way to profit from assassinations and terrorist acts.
The unpopular Orwellian implications of "Total Information Awareness," as well as charges that the program would violate the Fourth Amendment, dampened the project's popularity on Capitol Hill. The Senate voted to cut funding for TIA on January 23, 2003, pending a Congressional report on the office's activities.
Congress, however, did rule that some data mining technologies may be continued by intelligence agencies in secret, as long as they are not used on Americans within our borders.
Another proposed surveillance program, sponsored by Homeland Security Department head Tom Ridge, known as TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System), was called by some a "snitch" program because it planned to use information phoned in by neighbors and co-workers. It was removed from the Act before its passage, due to public outcry.
Despite these tenuous victories, civil liberties groups aren't done fighting the Homeland Security Act. Among their major concerns are the provisions of the Act which enable Presidential Advisory committees to meet in secret without having to provide a reason, contradictory to the open meeting provisions of Public Law 92-463 (aka Sunshine Act).