No subject

Randall rvh40 at insightbb.com
Wed Apr 5 11:18:15 PDT 2006


<dewayne at warpspeed.com>, JMG <johnmacsgroup at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Sorry About That

<http://htdaw.blogsource.com/post.mhtml?post_id=301259>

Thursday, April 06, 2006 at 2:15 AM EDT
Pentagon says improper data in security database
Wed Apr 5, 2006 4:37 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Wednesday a review launched
after revelations that it had collected data on U.S. peace activists
found that roughly 260 entries in a classified database of possible
terrorist threats should not have been kept there.

But the review reaffirmed the value of the so-called Talon reporting
system on potential threats to Pentagon personnel or facilities by
international terrorists, said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon
spokesman. He said the Pentagon was putting in place new safeguards and
oversight intended to prevent improper information from going in the
database.

Whitman said "less than 2 percent" of the more than 13,000 database
entries provided through the Talon system "should not have been there or
should have been removed at a certain point in time."

Whitman disputed critics' assertions that the program amounted to
Pentagon domestic spying, although he declined to state the nature of
these entries or the people they involved, saying the database's
contents are classified. Whitman stressed that to be properly placed in
the database, a threat must have a suspected link to international
terrorism.

Under the Talon system, Defense Department civilian and military
personnel are asked to report on activities they deem suspicious. These
reports go in the Cornerstone database, handled by a Pentagon agency
called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.

The review was ordered in December by Stephen Cambone, under secretary
of defense for intelligence, after revelations that the database
included information on U.S. citizens including peace activists and
others who did not represent a genuine security threat.

'SUSPICIOUS'

NBC News and defense analyst William Arkin disclosed at the time a
sample of the database containing reports of 1,519 "suspicious
incidents" between July 2004 and May 2005, including activities by
antiwar and anti-military protesters.

This included a military intelligence unit monitoring a Quaker meeting
in Lake Worth, Florida, on plans to protest military recruiting in high
schools.

The Pentagon is legally restricted in the types of information it can
gather about activities and individuals inside the United States.

A memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said the Talon
system "has detected international terrorist interest in specific
military bases and has led to and supported counterterrorism
investigations." It called the data "unfiltered and non-validated
potential threat information."

Whitman said data reported through Talon could be turned over the FBI or
local law enforcement.

The Pentagon said it will conduct annual oversight reviews of the Talon
program, designate supervisors to review each Talon report before
submission to the database, and direct CIFA to review submissions to
ensure they are proper.

Whitman said he did not know if the Pentagon had disciplined anyone for
putting improper information in the database, but was "not aware of any
malicious or deliberate attempts" to use the Talon system against a
specific person or group.

Some critics have noted similarities in the Pentagon's activities during
the Iraq War and those of the Vietnam War period, when it spied on
antiwar activists.

"If the Pentagon has been collecting information improperly on
Americans, it should provide a full accounting of what kind of
information it collected, on whom and why, subject only perhaps to
protecting the privacy of individuals," said Kate Martin, director of
the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group
interested in government surveillance.

<http://tinyurl.com/lcf2q>

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>

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