Talon system

From dKosopedia

Category: Intelligence

The Talon system is operated by the Counterintelligence Field Activity of the United States Department of Defense, and it used to report suspicious activities that may threaten US military forces worldwide, including inside the US. This data is passed on to the Joint Protection Enterprise Network (JPEN) or "Cornerstone" database.

On April 5, 2006, the Pentagon announced that an internal review had found that "'less than 2 percent' of the more than 13,000 entries in the database provided through the so-called Talon reporting system "should not have been there or should have been removed at a certain point in time." Some of these improper entries may have been tracking US anti-war protests.

In April 2007, James R. Clapper, the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence announced that he was terminating the program, saying he "has assessed the results of the Talon program and does not believe they merit continuing the program as currently constituted, particularly in light of its image in Congress and the media," (Source: Pentagon to End Talon Data-Gathering Program, Washington Post, April 25, 2007, p.A10.)

In July 2007, the Department of Defense released the Inspector General's report on the Talon system. They found that every TALON report had been deleted in June 2006 (just after the investigation began), with no backups.

Sources

• More Funny Business with Record-Keeping?, by emptywheel of The Next Hurrah blog, July 2, 2007.
• DOD Inspector General's report
• Pentagon says improper data in security database by Will Dunham of Reuters.
• Secretary England's March 30 Memorandum

See Also

• Intelligence Agencies
• MZM