mr. chairman , i thank the chairman for yielding me this time . 
mr. chairman , i think we can meet some of the concerns expressed so far without adopting this amendment . 
let us just back up for just a second . 
there is a lot of individual information somewhere in the country in little pieces . 
the challenge we have in the war on terrorism is looking around for those pieces that matter and trying to fit them together . 
that is really what data mining is . 
it is looking at various databases and coming up with the relevant pieces of information and helping us to form a picture about what really happens . 
there has been some misunderstanding and i think some undue controversy about that for we will never get all those pieces of information together without these tools that help us do so . 
to the extent this amendment adds additional reporting requirements and sends a message that we want to discourage them in various agencies from using those tools , i think , does a disservice . 
maybe there are some protections that we can come up with that help address the concerns of the chairman of the committee on the judiciary , but i think to simply add more reporting requirements and have these people filling out more paperwork when they really ought to be figuring out who the terrorists are and what they are up to is a misuse of their time . 
