Project computers already match names on various welfare lists with names on felony warrants issued around the country. That screening process has led to thousands of arrests among recipients of disability checks alone, including 88 wanted on homicide charges.

But records and interviews also show that the computer dragnet frequently cut off federal benefits to the sick, poor and disabled who were neither fugitives nor felons. Many lacked financial and legal resources to get their benefits restored.

Here are two examples of the project in action:

In one case, an Oregon man with a mental disorder was named on an arrest warrant for entering a rental car without permission at an airport parking lot in 1999. Four years later, computers found the record, and the man's federal disability payments stopped. The man committed suicide last year, before his benefits could be reinstated.

An Oregon woman with lung disease lost her monthly disability check and faced the loss of her government-subsidized oxygen supplies over a Nevada arrest warrant she didn't know existed.

I hope AARP blanketing Congress with protests over this project.

[hat tip < Gov. Arnie Shows Support for Felons | Iraq Votes Counted: Religious Shiites Ahead >