Terrorism Information Awareness. A research initiative that would use technology to detect, preempt and defeat terrorist attacks before they happen. TIA is a Department of Defense (DOD) project managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Lawmakers and civil liberties advocates are concerned that TIA would violate individuals privacy if it were used to inspect personal data, particularly financial transactions and telephone records. TIA would consist of a set of technologies, including electronic searching tools, to mine such records in the hopes of finding patterns indicating an imminent terrorism attack. TIA advocates say it isn't intended to scour large numbers of private databases and have long said that media and privacy groups have misinterpreted their intentions. Relates to Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS, Looked it up elsewhere in the source)