Counterterrorism authorities would be granted unprecedented access to law enforcement and commercial databases containing billions of records about private citizens under a bipartisan bill to restructure the intelligence system that the Senate began debating yesterday. The proposed national information-sharing network eventually would link hundreds or thousands of local, state, federal and commercial computers, according to the bill's language and congressional aides familiar with the intent of lawmakers. The new network would enable authorized investigators to draw on details about where suspects live, the cars they drive, their associates, their police records and their possible ties to terrorist activities. [more
]