Though the numbers look somewhat encouraging - a 5.9 percent proposed increase in NITRD programs is twice the level of increase the President requested in his FY 03 budget - they are misleading. Because Congress has still not concluded work on 11 of the 13 annual appropriations bills necessary to fund government activities in FY 2003, the President's budget uses the funding levels he proposed in his FY 03 request as the baseline for comparison. The final numbers approved by Congress for FY 03 are likely to be significantly higher than the President's original request Š so much so, in fact, that many of the 'increases' the President proposes for FY 04 will actually appear to be decreases in funding over the final FY 03 level.

For example, the President proposes $724 million in NITRD funding at NSF, $584 million of that in NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate, an increase of 10.9 percent for CISE over the Administration's FY 03 plan. However, both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees approved increases of more than 15 percent for CISE, and the Senate version of the final Omnibus bill includes an increase of 15.8 percent to the CISE budget ($596.15 million total). When compared to these likely final numbers, the President's proposed budget of $584 million appears to be a $12 million cut to NSF CISE.

Another factor that makes the Administration's proposal for NITRD funding in FY 04 difficult to interpret is the absence of detail concerning the new Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology directorate and Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. The President proposes $803 million in funding for the new directorate, but it is not clear what, if any, portion of that funding will go towards NITRD-related research.

Though it is clear that information technology remains a high-priority for research in this Administration - NITRD in one of only three 'select' interagency initiatives (National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Climate Change Science Program are the others) - the funding level requested still falls well short of the level recommended by the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). In 1999, PITAC, tasked with reviewing the federal government's IT R&D effort, concluded that federal support for IT R&D was inadequate and too focused on near-term problems; long-term fundamental IT research was not sufficiently supported relative to the importance of IT to the United States' economic, health, scientific and other aspirations; critical problems in computing were going unsolved; and the rate of introduction of new ideas was dangerously low. Included in the report was a series of specific funding recommendations for FY's 2000 through 2004 - a total recommended increase of $1.3 billion over five years. The President's request falls $503 million short of the PITAC recommended level for FY 04.

CRA will work to insure that Congress and the Administration remain aware of the crucial role information technology research and development plays in the nation's prosperity, security and the health of its people, and continue to make the case in support of robust IT R&D funding.

Many of the technologies that have enabled our current economic prosperity and increased our national security have their roots in university research supported by the DARPA. For example, the Internet, graphical user interfaces, and global positioning systems are all the result of long-term, cutting-edge, university-based research, supported decades ago by DARPA. DARPA has been recognized as the high-risk, high-payoff defense agency ever since its inception. The committee, however, is concerned about recent trends in the agency-sponsored research that appear more shortsighted in their approach, particularly the emphasis on 12- and 18-month reviews in order to attempt to eliminate non-promising technologies.

The committee supports effective internal oversight and commends DARPA for pursuing truly innovative technologies. However, annual reviews may not be appropriate for all basic and applied defense-related research programs. Additionally, these reviews have a discouraging effect on the intended long-term payoff of the research and are especially inconsistent with the time frames and pace of university research. The committee is concerned that this near-term approach to basic and applied research will have detrimental consequences on the ability to develop innovative solutions to future threats. Therefore, the committee urges DARPA to re-evaluate its policies for reviewing and terminating awards in scientific and technical areas where the Department of Defense is dependent on DARPA's ability to do revolutionary research that requires some time to develop and mature.

Additionally, while the integration and application of IT throughout the DARPA's programs has real benefits, CRA members have expressed concern that research aimed at advancing the leading edge of IT has not received adequate focus within the agency. CRA believes the DARPA office most responsible for fundamental IT research, the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO), should support a broad scope of national-level, urgent topics in IT research where DARPA is not currently engaged. These topics include: multi-agent systems; the fundamentals of security (e.g., 'security through diversity'), fundamental advances in databases, data mining, and knowledge discovery; and new approaches to networking.

CRA will continue to work with Members of Congress, the Administration, and the leadership at DARPA to resolve these issues.

As an association of computing researchers, CRA shares many of the concerns of TIA's critics. However, CRA believes that research into the development of a system that could address all of those concerns is worthwhile. The technologies that would be required to build a workable version of TIA - information fusion, improved privacy technologies, machine-learning algorithms for data mining - are technologies that have been identified by many, including the National Research Council as worthy of further study. The problems that need solving are, indeed, sufficiently hard ('DARPA-hard') as to be worth the time and investment. Even if the full system as envisioned is not deployable, some components of the system may be effective in anti-terrorism activities.

Therefore, CRA supports continued research in this area and would oppose a moratorium on research similar to that included in recent Senate legislation. CRA would strongly object, however, to any consideration of using a prototype TIA system in any operational way if the concerns delineated above were not adequately addressed.

CRA will also continue monitor efforts to allow content providers safe harbor from anti-tampering and trespass laws in order that they can disrupt or disable certain peer-to-peer filesharing activities. This 'authorized hacking' of peer-to-peer networks could have the two-fold effect of crippling legitimate networks upon which researchers rely and hindering the growth of peer-to-peer software, which has many promising future applications.

CRA will work with our affiliate societies and with other members of the scientific community who are working to craft a broad position in support of academic freedom.