Washington ? The Bush administration intends to cancel a $12 million program that helped police in California build an information-sharing computer network the FBI used to identify a suspected terrorist within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to people familiar with the decision.

Bush’s $2.13 trillion budget, to be announced today, includes no money in 2003 for the Commerce Department’s Technology Opportunity Program, called TOP, said people familiar with the proposal, speaking on condition of anonymity. A Commerce spokesman declined to discuss White House budget plans.

Bush last year cut funds for the grants program from $42.8 million to $15 million, and the government ultimately handed out $12.4 million in grants for 2002. This year’s plan would continue paying for projects already approved by Commerce, but would provide no new grants.

The Commerce Department considers among its most successful grants the $1 million “Cal-Photo” police computer network in California, which allows investigators to share millions of digitized photos.

U.S. officials said Cal-Photo located in its system a photograph of a terror suspect, whom they did not identify, that the FBI could not retrieve because it had not been relayed to the bureau’s own National Crime Information Center.

The FBI now has full access to Cal-Photo, which includes criminal mug shots and photographs from 32 million California driver’s licenses and identification cards. Cal-Photo is now a central tool for the state’s new anti-terrorism information center.