-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: August 21, 2007 1:42:28 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Pentagon "Shutting Down" Dissident Database
Pentagon to shut down
controversial domestic threat data base
TALON cost taxpapers over $1 billion a year, employed about 1300
people
by Jim Mannion
August 21, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070821/pl_afp/
usmilitaryintelligence_070821171356;_ylt=AiH4wT3X1BxgZ853Lzb5W.VH2ocA
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon said Tuesday it is shutting down a
counter-intelligence reporting system and database called TALON
that came under fire for monitoring the activities of hundreds of
anti-war activists.
The system will be shut down September 17 and reporting on threats
to US military installations in the United States will be shifted
to the FBI, said Colonel Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.
"It was terminated because reporting had declined significantly,
both quantitatively and qualitatively so," he said. "The analytical
value was pretty slim."
Keck was unable to explain the decline but the system has been a
source of controversy since media revelations in December 2005 that
it was used to gather unverified reports of peace activists and
others as alleged threats to US military facilities.
The Pentagon said it will keep a copy of an electronic database of
threat reports created as part of the system but new reports will
go to an FBI database called Guardian until it devises an
alternative reporting system.
James Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, had said
in April that he was moving to end the program. Deputy Defense
Secretary Gordon England signed the order shutting it down.
The Pentagon said it "will propose a system to streamline such
threat reporting and better meet the Defense Department's needs."
Keck said Pentagon officials will have access to the FBI database
and will still evaluate law enforcement and other reports of
threats to US military facilities.
"We continue to collect (threat) information from the field from
law enforcement, security personnel, like we always have. That will
not stop. Obviously we need to do that," Keck said.
The TALON reporting system was run by a little known Pentagon
entity called the Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA), which
maintained a data base with some 13,000 threat reports, according a
inspector general's report in June.
The Defense Department's inspector general concluded that CIFA
acted legally in collecting information on US citizens because the
reports were gathered for law enforcement rather than intelligence
purposes.
However, the inspector general's review of 1,113 reports that were
purged from the TALON database after the media disclosures in
December 2005 found that 263 reports dealt with anti-war protests.
It also found that 571 US residents were named in the purged reports.
It was unclear what effect ending the TALON reporting system will
have on CIFA, which was created in September 2002 by former deputy
defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
The Washington Post reported that it spent more than one billion
dollars through last October, and had a staff of 400 full-time
employees and 800-900 contract workers.
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
