Fighting terror notebook

Pentagon stands by high-tech experiment

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Wednesday defended an antiterrorism technology experiment that critics have likened to domestic spying on the financial transactions of ordinary citizens.

Pete Aldridge, the chief of technology for the Defense Department, told reporters that the project is intended to test whether new computer tools can comb through masses of information -- such as credit card and bank transactions, car rentals and gun purchases -- and spot clues to the planning of terrorist acts.

The project, called Total Information Awareness, has come under fire for its civil liberties implications.

An editorial in Wednesday's Daily Camera of Boulder, Colo., titled "Uncle Sam, the spy," said the Pentagon is trying to build a "huge digital dragnet" to unjustifiably monitor private lives.

The New York Times, in an editorial Monday, called on Congress to shut down the program pending an investigation.

A Washington Post editorial on Saturday questioned the wisdom of the Pentagon's choice of retired Rear Adm. John Poindexter to run the project. Poindexter was convicted in the wake of the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra scandal of five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing a congressional investigation. The convictions were overturned on appeal.

Also . . .

GERMANY TRIAL: The judge in the trial of a Moroccan man charged with aiding the Sept. 11 terrorists accused two witnesses of lying on the stand Wednesday and threatened to jail them for contempt of court.

The judge issued the warning after Bekim Adeni and Ibrahim Diab recanted statements to police that they met members of an al-Qaida cell in Hamburg while attending terrorist training camps in Afghanistan around the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The men did not have information about the defendant, Mounir el Motassadeq, a student accused of providing support to the Sept. 11 hijackers. But prosecutors hoped to use the testimony to establish that the Hamburg cell was part of the al-Qaida network.

NEW ALERT: The latest threats by Osama bin Laden prompted the State Department on Wednesday to issue a worldwide caution for Americans everywhere.

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