« previous | MUCK HOME | next »
DOD 'Talon' Database Declawed
The Quakers can sleep easier. This morning, the Pentagon announced that it's canceling a database created to monitor threats to Defense Department installations in the U.S. that ended up compiling lists of citizens engaged in peaceful, constitutionally-protected protest speech. For good measure, the Talon database was run by an intelligence office that doled out millions to crooked defense contractor MZM.
Talon, which compiled unverified threat information related to domestic Pentagon-run facilities, will go out of business on September 17. That's a long-planned obsolescence: in April, Defense intelligence chief James Clapper stated that the Pentagon needed to "lay to rest the distrust and concern about the department's commitment to civil rights." And for good reason. Internal DOD memoranda obtained and disclosed by the ACLU revealed that Talon had ensnared information on over 2,000 American citizens, some for posing little more of a threat than "the possibility" of "some type of vandalism."
Additionally, a recent Pentagon inspector-general report found irregularities and unanswered questions about how Talon purged information on American citizens deemed not to pose a security threat. Notably, DOD announced today that the agency overseeing Talon, known as the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), will "maintain a record copy of the collected data in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements." In other words, CIFA will keep records both of what Talon possesses and what information it deleted, in order to demonstrate that it wasn't covering up for improper or illegal intelligence collection.
CIFA has a reputation as a hive of corruption. Thanks to corrupt congressman Duke Cunningham, CIFA channeled millions of dollars in contracts to MZM, whose chief, Mitchell Wade, bribed Cunningham and larded CIFA with his cronies.
According to the Pentagon, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, Pete Verga, will come up with an alternative program "to document and assess potential threats to DoD resources." It remains to be seen whether Talon will essentially live on under a different name.
Comments (31)
Punchy wrote on August 21, 2007 2:41 PM:If you really think they flushed this program without replacing it with something more insideous, nefarious, and clandestine....well, I've got some bridges in Iraq to sell ya.
Helen Rainier wrote on August 21, 2007 2:46 PM:Punchy,
I was just thinking the same thing -- how do we REALLY KNOW they have REALLY DONE what they say they have done?
Can't trust the bastards. The whole gang is a bunch of Bush Thugs.
Anonymous wrote on August 21, 2007 2:50 PM:So presumably all the info in this database will be open to FOIA shortly?
Mooser wrote on August 21, 2007 2:54 PM:Just remember, when some clown tells taunts you with the old tautology;"If you're not doing anything wrong why do you care if they spy on you?"
The answer is: They are not spying to find out what you're doing wrong, they are spying on you to find out what you are doing right!
Mooser wrote on August 21, 2007 3:00 PM:Just remember, when some clown tells taunts you with the old tautology;"If you're not doing anything wrong why do you care if they spy on you?"
The answer is: They are not spying to find out what you're doing wrong, they are spying on you to find out what you are doing right!
buck wrote on August 21, 2007 3:18 PM:Hold on a second! They've purged a record but they've kept the record of what they've purged? So, doesn't that simply mean that they transferred the info into a different database? If these records exist, no matter for what purpose, they are still accessible.
I suppose, it is possible that they meant that the "record" is just a list of things collected and another list of things purged, but the actual data would be gone. It's a possible explanation, but it seems more likely that the data really are still available.
P J Evans wrote on August 21, 2007 3:26 PM:Haven't we heard this one at least twice already in the last seven years?
TheraP wrote on August 21, 2007 4:02 PM:Given this maladministration's track record on veracity, why should we believe them this time (or any time)?
Couldn't help but relate the above to this headline at the bbc: "Copies of Nazi files transferred."
statusquomustgo wrote on August 21, 2007 4:07 PM:riiiiiiiiiight
statusquomustgo wrote on August 21, 2007 4:08 PM:riiiiiiiiiight
Long Memory wrote on August 21, 2007 4:21 PM:I read this and wondered if there's not some new FISA ruling out there that makes it clear that they can't do what they've been doing. Then again, when has being told that they couldn't something ever slowed them down?
conniptionfit wrote on August 21, 2007 5:26 PM:Wouldn't be the first time that the DOD announced the cessation of a controversial program, only to have the program continue under another name and under black funding. What was that "rat your neighbor out" program that Poindexter was running a couple of years ago? TIPS?
Michael Lafferty wrote on August 21, 2007 5:41 PM:That was TIA: the Total Information Awareness program, a poorly conceived data-mining effort akin more to sifting through your neighbors garbage than to anonymously reporting the 'strange' behavior next door…
dasher wrote on August 21, 2007 5:51 PM:So, why in the hell does this guy in charge of CIFA, Burtt (follow WaPo link) still have his job?
Oh, yeah. This is the Bush Adminstration. I wonder whose brother-in-law he is!
Brain2Brain wrote on August 21, 2007 6:00 PM:As this administration expires, the next 18 months will be filled with other structures "expiring" or ending. Some will continue in secret under hidden names. Other structures and supporting structures will "go away" the same way Cheney shreds documents. I say "supporting structures" because I read that Diebold is trying to completely sell off its electronic voting business. Hmmm, does Diebold think it will be more fully investigated... with suits and convictions, maybe? Watch other disappearing acts in the near future.
Anonymous wrote on August 21, 2007 7:11 PM:They're giving the database to the FBI. That was reported on NPR. And that makes you happy, why?
bb wrote on August 21, 2007 7:34 PM:DoD = L:I:A:R:S
Mark Richards wrote on August 21, 2007 7:42 PM:The DOD must be hitting an anniversary for increased funding soon.
Whenever they purport to give something (that they had no right taking) the hand will come out forthwith.
j swift wrote on August 21, 2007 8:36 PM:Sounds like they were working on a fool-proof database. You know, one where everyone is suspect. Makes it easier that way.
jimbo92107 wrote on August 21, 2007 8:47 PM:Does anybody believe the government when it says it's going to stop spying on us?
Of course not, and that's tragic, because it makes us all feel afraid of our own government. Not a good way to live.
calipendence wrote on August 21, 2007 9:23 PM:We still don't have good reasons why a year ago both diretor David Burtt and his deputy Joseph Hefferon resigned on the same day for "personal reasons" two months after this database was purged as emptywheel has summararized well here:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/more-funny-busi.html
I think Waxman needs to get those guys on the stand to explain their resignations and what they were doing the previous months before they left.
It also seems strangely coincidental that the cases related to Cunningham scandal (Kontogiannis, Wilkes, etc.) are all coming to a head now too which are tied to this case through the MZM connections, etc. as well.
Something definitely smells in the state of Denmark!
paul wrote on August 22, 2007 10:20 AM:According to the wires, it appears they're just moving the current info and any additional info they collect to the FBI. Under normal circumstances that would subject the information to constitutional safeguards, but in this case it may just make harassment of those on the list easier to carry out (since being visited by military personnel would raise notice)
dee illuminati wrote on August 22, 2007 10:27 AM:While legitimate intel should be collected, I would hate to see a circumstance where secret contracts were awarded and then a political donation/kickback accrued, all the while creating a conduit to target political opposition by priming the pump with targets so some wet behind the ears, newly minted 12th, 13th street boy in Chickenland could initiate an investigation to go after 'terrorists.'
Matt Janovic wrote on August 22, 2007 1:09 PM:What's interesting about this is: I've found a man in Deborah Jeane Palfrey's phone records who works for a contractor working in the same areas. One company is known as SAIC, and he might be working-for Mitre as well (www.mitre.org)The hidden-part in a lot of this is probably in private sector contractor databanks, they're not under the same laws as the government. That's why they're contracted.
Gadfly4278 wrote on September 8, 2007 4:32 PM:I think back to the speech made by Reagun on
seuwgrqz osczh wrote on September 8, 2007 6:41 PM:getting "big brother" out of our lives and look at this. Look at these freaks. They also completely lack the ability for any reflection on what they are doing. Completely. This is where the Democrats are supposed to step in but they have ripped out their own backbones--they have done it TO THEMSELVES. Imagine castrating yourself. They Democrats get into power andso many of us worked to get them there then they
castrate themselves before the NeoCons...giving complete power to them. It is some long protracted nightmare driving our country into ruins. So there is literally nothing to keep this in check. Nothing. We all know we dont' mean shit in any of their eyes.
jdxrhoi wkudep fqndrplwa whrif dgot idzgeptmy ljmwuebz
Martell wrote on September 23, 2007 9:21 AM:Work from home, earn decent income and forget about your money worries forever. The Canadian marketer tells you how to build your online empire on a tight budget.
Gehl wrote on September 29, 2007 10:42 PM:What is email marketing? The effective method of getting new leads for your business.
Jack wrote on October 10, 2007 10:25 AM:How do you think about passing a drug test. Is it easy or not?
billing wrote on October 11, 2007 6:53 AM:Song of Deborah
...They chose new gods; then was war in the gates... Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song... the LORD made you have dominion over the mighty... Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of Justice against the mighty... Have they not divided the prey; to every man a damsel or two? So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land rest forty years. Judges 5.
Deborah Palfrey deserves the Pemberton Award for Clean Governance.
Palfrey list is like the Black Book of 1918.
That Trial of the century is deleted from all books.
The list there had 47000 names.
The list here has 46000 phone bills.
The listed are not womenizers, machos or ordinary sinners.
They are power brokers, gay lutheran whock and awe agitators of all wars and all panics.
These wretches are one dirty cover to the real pimps deep undercover.
A curse on the kingpins, Justice Charles Darling then and Judge Adolph Kramer Kessler now.
Noel Pemberton-Billing
Trial of the Century 1918
dread locks wrote on December 20, 2007 4:44 PM:nvx50yxyus4a2y2f dread locks dread locks