Pentagon To Shut Anti-Terror Database
TALON Database Criticized For Improperly Storing Information On Anti-War Groups
(AP) The Pentagon said Tuesday that it will shut down an anti-terror database that has been criticized for improperly storing information on peace activists and others whose actions posed no threat.
It will be closed on Sept. 17 and information collected subsequently on potential terror or security threats to Defense Department facilities or personnel will be sent by Pentagon officials to an FBI database known as Guardian, according to Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.
Keck said the Pentagon database is being shut down because "the analytical value had declined," but not because of public criticism of how it was used. Eventually the
Pentagon hopes to create a new system — not necessarily a database — to "streamline such threat reporting," according to a brief statement issued Tuesday.
Keck said that after the TALON database is shut down in September,
a copy of the data it contains will be maintained at the Pentagon for record-keeping purposes but not for further analytical use.
....
The TALON reports — collected by an array of Defense Department agencies including law enforcement, intelligence, counterintelligence and security — are kept in a large database and
analyzed by an obscure Pentagon agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity.
CIFA is a three-year-old outfit whose size and budget are secret....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/21/terror/main3190133.shtml