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US Shuts Down Controversial Anti-Terror Database
coondoggie writes "The massive anti-terror database established by the US government has been criticized for keeping track of regular everyday citizens. Computerworld reports that as of September 17th, the database will be shut down. 'The Threat and Local Observation Notices or TALON, was established in 2002 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as a way to collect and evaluate information about possible threats to U.S. service members and defense civilians all over the world.
Congress and others protested its apparent use as an unauthorized citizen tracking database. The TALON system came under fire in 2005 for improperly storing information about some civilian individuals and non-government-affiliated groups on its database. The Air Force developed TALON... in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a way to gather data on possible terrorist threats. Anti-war groups and other organizations, protested after it was revealed last year that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies.'"
No, you are thinking of the Total Information Awareness program, which was very different. That (and its associated programs) were/are datamining everybody's credit reports, public records, etc to find "terrorist patterns".
This program is unrelated. It's not datamining anything. All this is is a centralized database of threats to DoD installations and personnel. Sure, it has its potential for abuse, but its a very different animal from TIA, and confusing the two does't help anyone.
I could swear this program has been "killed" twice, and by "killed" i mean the government's definition: proclaiming a project discontinued while continuing it under a new name.
This sort of thing has been reported for US government agencies for decades. Back when all the data was all in paper archives, there were lots of reports of agencies that "obeyed" orders to destroy them by first running them through copiers, transporting the copies to some other site, and then destroying the originals. I recall during the Vietnam War, when the DoD was ordered to destroy their records of spying on anti-war groups, and the DoD announced that it had done so. But some time later, reporters published reports that at least five backup copies had been located at five different sites.
No matter how dumb you think government (or corporate) employees are, fact is that most of them are smart enough to figure out this ruse.
There's also the reverse version that's been making the news: We're now reading reports of managers (government and corporate) finding the contents of their email used against them in court, when they thought that the email messages had been deleted. The messages had been deleted from disk, of course, but the backups could still be read. Oops!
When you read stories like this, you should always ask yourself "How many copies were made?" That will put you into the proper cynical perspective, which you'll later remember when it turns out you were right to ask.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Ron Paul has voted against this sort of thing over and over again. This is all the more reason to get him into the Presidency.
Libertas in infinitum