TALON, De-Clawed
The Pentagon has announced that it plans to shut down the controversial TALON database program, which collected intelligence for federal government agencies. The program, which came under fierce criticism from civil liberties groups because of privacy concerns, is being discontinued "because the amount and quality of information being gathered had declined," according to The Washington Post.
SLDN had our own run-in with TALON. In 2005, we learned that the program was being used to monitor, among other things, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests on university campuses. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) for more information, and when the government stonewalled our request, SLDN took the case to federal court. As a result, the government admitted that it had, indeed, collected such intelligence. Among the protests monitored was a gay campus kiss-in.
Given that bit of information, it's no wonder DoD was dismayed by the "quality of information being gathered." Now that such surveillance is being discontinued under TALON, perhaps our federal agencies can get back to monitoring the real threats.
- Steve RallsLabels: FOIA, in the news
08-22-07
2 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.deegee on December 31, 1969 at 02.00 pm
Makes you wonder just what is in that man-sized safe in Dick Cheney’s office. But seriously, I agree with jeremy. They are just hiding and collecting the information elsewhere.
——-
Jeremy Johnson on December 31, 1969 at 02.00 pm
Much as I would love to believe that TALON is gone - what I actually believe is that the Christian politics running rampant through the Pentagon will or may have already found something similar to take its place. And with anything in the DoD, you will never delete all records. Someone, somewhere, will continue to keep copies on file.