Everyone should read the article by Robert Dreyfus in Rolling Stone (4/20) reviewing the Pentagon's domestic intelligence operations since 9/11 .
In 2002 the President authorized the creation of Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), to consolidate all military intelligence capabilities with the hope it could head-off any future attacks or sabotage. This program was later expanded to include a program called Threat and Local Observation Notices (TALONs), which quiet literally gathered tips from local law enforcement and regular folks on any suspicious activities especially in and around military facilities.
Overtime, this program has become somewhat abusive, if not a bit ridiculous. For example, among the groups added to the CIFA’s database where totally harmless anti-Iraq war groups like Truth Project and the Raging Grannies. The danger with a program like this is obvious. CIFA could have grown into a sort of American Gestapo with neighbors calling on neighbors. But it did not exactly work out that way, as one a retired Army intelligence officer Christopher Pyle made clear, “a lot of them (TALONs) are filed by paranoid housewives and rabid, retired colonels with nothing better to do…”
And the military, in stark contrast to the Executive Branch, has admitted the error of its ways and is in the process of reviewing the program. As acting deputy undersecretary of defense for counterintelligence and security indicated, “We’ve laid our dirty laundry on the table, we recognize that have to sharpen our focus.”
How refreshing? Little Brother Is Watching wishes the Executive Branch of the Government of the United States could have that kind of honor and foresight.
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