Panel OKs more 2002 IT spending

The House Appropriations Committee took a step last week toward approving a $29.4 billion supplemental spending package for fiscal 2002 that includes more money for information technology and homeland security.

The committee is expected to complete work this week on the proposal, which would allocate $2.3 billion more than President Bush requested to fill in the gaps of his fiscal 2002 budget, primarily for homeland security.

The bill includes:

* $1.6 billion for the Defense Department for intelligence and classified activities.

* $75 million for the Immigration and Naturalization Service's entry/exit system, which tracks foreign visitors to the United States.

* $44 million for the FBI for investigative data warehousing and data mining tools, and an additional $8 million for digital storage and retrieval of documents.

* $12 million for the Coast Guard for more port vulnerability assessments.

* $10.4 million for the Secret Service to expand the Electronic Crime Task Forces, which deal with financial and terrorism-related crime.