Pentagon Is Expected to Close Intelligence Unit

[flashl]

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is expected to shut a controversial intelligence office that has drawn fire from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who charge that it was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into domestic spying.

The move, government officials say, is part of a broad effort under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to review, overhaul and, in some cases, dismantle an intelligence architecture built by his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, was created by Mr. Rumsfeld after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States and abroad.

Yet the office, whose size and budget is classified, came under fierce criticism in 2005 after it was disclosed that it was managing a database that included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/washington/02intel.html

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One less intelligence group at 'our' next church meeting or anti-war protest?

[Lint Head]

1. Too little too late. The criminals in the White House have already

used it up and they will get away scott free. :dem:

[hobbit709]

2. Intelligence and Pentagon in the same sentence?

[fshrink]

12. No. no: It's "counter-intelligence"!

Literally very fitting.

[Donnachaidh]

3. But is this just an *official* notice of closure --

I've so little faith in this administration I'd have to see furniture being sold off, pink slips handed out and the building leveled to the ground before I'd believe they would close ANY of their *spy units*.
They are not going to give up spying on dissidents in this country.

[SpiralHawk]

8. I wonder if they 'lost' their email and data base, like the Bush White House?

Gosh, that would be a darn shame, wouldn't it?

[HereSince1628]

4. Gonna be a lot of this. They don't want Dems to come into office

with the evidence of their anti-constitutional activity still intact and operating.

[pattmarty]

5. If Rumsfeld had anything to do with it, blow it up and bury it!!!

[L. Coyote]

6. DIA SPYING: NGIA collecting data, 133 U.S. cities, ID everyone, nationality, political affiliations

Battlefield: U.S.
Pentagon spies are treating the homeland like a war zone
By Laura K. Donohue - http://cisac.stanford.edu/news/domestic_spying_turns_homeland_into_battlefield_warns_cisac_scholar_20060530

May 30, 2006 - Originally in Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2006
Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee will begin questioning Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, about the National Security Agency's collection of U.S. citizens' telephone records.

... the Senate and the American public may be missing a broader and more disturbing development. For the first time since the Civil War, the United States has been designated a military theater of operations. The Department of Defense... is taking an unprecedented role in domestic spying.

... it circumvents three decades of efforts by Congress to restrict government surveillance of Americans ... it represents a profound shift in the role of the military operating inside the United States... erosion of the principle, embedded in the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, that the U.S. military not be used for domestic law enforcement.

When the administration declared the United States to be a theater of military operations in 2002, it created a U.S. Northern Command, which set up intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas to analyze the domestic threat. ....

The Defense Intelligence Agency, created in 1961 to provide foreign military intelligence, now uses "Verity K2" software to scan U.S. intelligence files and the Internet "to identify foreign terrorists or Americans connected to foreign terrorism activity," and "Inxight Smart Discovery" software to help identify patterns in databases. CIFA has reportedly contracted with Computer Sciences Corp. to buy identity-masking software, which could allow it to create fake websites and monitor legitimate U.S. sites without leaving clues that it had been there. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is collecting data from 133 U.S. cities; intelligence sources told the Los Angeles Times that, when collection is completed, the agency would be able to identify occupants in each house, their nationality and even their political affiliation..........

From: Yesterday was a GREAT DAY for Falwell TO DIE. Or, the Buffalo Jump to Hell.
May-27-07 - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x983282

[Solly Mack]

7. and the files? the paper trail of evidence? WIll Gates "close"

all that too?

[Highway61]

9. Close it?

I never thought there was a lick of intelligence there to begin with...in fact that goes for most of this administration.

[Ian David]

10. It's much cheaper to find real spies and traitors by reading Robert Novak's column. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Bush mafia is like the movie "What About Bob?"

The scene where Dreyfuss says "Bob's not gone. He will never be gone. He never leaves"

Remember when Rumsfeld resigned?
then it was discovered he still was at the Pentagon, with a staff.

Remember when a whole gag-al of DOJ robots "resigned", starting with Kyle Sampson.
and it was discovered that Sampson had merely moved to another office,
and he had to *really* leave after the uproar over that.
and rest of gang who resigned got cushy jobs somewhere else in government.

Remember when Wolfie finally was dragged kicking and screaming from the World Bank, absolutely
clueless as to why anyone would dare criticize him
and Bush then appointed him to some planning job at WH.

They will just change office or names or job descriptions..
but they never leave.
That Office isn't closing down.