The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has send a report to Congress on their enormous data mining project. The program's name is changed from Total Information Awareness Program (TIA) to Terrorism Information Awareness Program because "the program's previous name created in some minds the impression that TIA was a system to be used for developing dossiers on U.S. citizens".
DARPA stresses in the report that the collection and data mining of financial records, medical records, communication records and travel records will be completely lawful. Supposedly US law puts very little limitations on these activities.
Although the report to Congress only discusses the privacy concerns of US citizens, it is worth noting that the program will not limit itself to the collection of privacy sensitive data about US citizens. Europeans who wonder how their passenger data will be handled by the US might take an interest in the details of the TIA program.
Terrorism Information Awareness Program
http://www.darpa.mil/body/tia/tia_report_page.htm