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Banned
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For the last few years, trying to have a discussion with "the other side" has seemed like talking to political "Stepford Wives":
This seems to be "what it takes" to "buy in" to the entire post 9/11, republican supported, Bush - Cheney agenda:
Quote:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ism/index.html
Glenn Greenwald
Friday June 29, 2007 10:09 EST
Tucker, Jonah, Elizabeth and Jillian
.....In the episode where Jillian first appeared, Brian's family invited Jillian over for dinner for the specific purpose of asking her questions to elicit stupid answers that would entertain them. The following exchange ensued:
Stewie: So Jillian, what are your views regarding Homeland Security? Do you think that we should support what the President's is doing?
<h3>Jillian: Well -- I just think -- for starters -- that sometimes the Government has things they can't tell us, and truth-ish-ly, we should just accept that. </h3>
Coincidentally, several days after that episode was broadcast, right-wing blogs were <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/29/video-rosie-melts-down-on-the-view/">excitedly discussing</a> an argument that had taken place that day on the television program, The View, between Bush critic Rosie O'Donnell and Bush defender Elizabeth Hasselbeck, during which the following exchange occurred (at roughly 2:05 of the video):
<h3>Hasselbeck: I trust our government and I trust our allies much more than I trust our enemies on the War on Terror.</h3>
O'Donnell: Would you say you trust the Bush administration as much as you did when he first took office?
<h3>Hasselbeck: You know what -- in a time of war -- I think you are in a position where you have to trust your government.</h3>
This is a photo of the scene where Jillian (seated at left) expressed her views about the need for us all to accept that it is best when the Government operates in secret:
<center><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1794/1771/1600/607843/familyguy.jpg"><br>And this a photo of the scene where Hasselbeck (seated at right) expressed the same view:
<a http://href="http://www.youtube.com/...Dthe%2Dview%2F
<br><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1794/1771/1600/970217/view.jpg"></center><br>
Our government leaders know that they can act in complete secrecy -- and can act illegally -- because such a sizable portion of our population, and our press corps, not only accepts, but eagerly desires, such behavior in our Leaders. The authoritarian mind, by its nature, craves powerful government officials, the more powerful the better, because -- as Jonah made clear -- they place blind faith in the Goodness of those Leaders and crave an all-powerful figure whom they can follow and who, in exchange, will protect them.
And anything which diminishes that power -- whether it be the limits of the law, checks from other branches or the media, or even the basic obligation to govern out in the open -- will be opposed by the authoritarian follower, for whom maximizing the strength and power of the Leader is always the overriding goal. Conversely, anything which limits the power of the Leader is to be opposed.
Anyone observing our political culture over the last six years -- from the blithe acceptance of rampant government secrecy to those defending the President's right to act without legal limits -- ought to be able to infer that these are the premises motivating the Bush movement and their media enablers......
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<h3>Yeah...I know...it's loonnnggg...but I didn't make this stuff up...this is the trail of what they've said, vs. what they've done. We don't know where it leads...., but the Randy Cunningham prosecutor, US Atty., Carol Lam, was fired...she requested more time to complete her cases...and was denied by DOJ.... and the LA US Atty looking into this, Deborah Yang, ended up working along side, Ted Olson, in the same law firm that is defending Rep. Jerry Lewis.....think....read....ask questions...always !</h3>
The DOD inspector General has issued a "report" which seems to be incomplete, and it creates more questions than it answers:
Reading my May 8, 2006 post in the "Why did Goss resign?"thread linked here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...59&postcount=8
...should bring you up to speed on relevance of the IG's report:
Quote:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/arc...es/12local.htm
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Eshoo faults report regarding UCSC protest
Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, faulted a report from the Department of Defense on Thursday for failing to thoroughly examine a program that collected and stored information on anti-war protests in Santa Cruz and around the country.
Eshoo requested the report in January 2006 after learning the Pentagon kept a database with information on anti-war protests, including a demonstration at UC Santa Cruz in April 2005. The Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, was established in 2001 to collect reports and tips of suspicious activity around military bases.
<h3>The report "does not assess who is accountable for violations of Defense Department regulations or explain why they occurred in the first place," Eshoo said in a statement. "The report neglects to assess whether adequate safeguards are now in place to protect the public"</h3>
Eshoo's district includes the North Coast, San Lorenzo Valley, Scotts Valley, Corralitos and parts of Santa Cruz.
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<h3>From the page following the Executive Summary Header:</h3>
Quote:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/talon.pdf
• The Counterintelligence Field Activity did not comply with the 90 day
retention review policy required by DoD Directive 5200.27. We could not
determine whether the U.S. Northern Command complied with the policy
requirement <h3>because all TALON reports were deleted from their database in
June 2006 with no archives...</h3>
# The Cornerstone database that the Counterintelligence Field Activity used to maintain TALON reports did not have the capability to identify TALON reports with U.S. person information, to identify reports requiring a 90-day retention review, or to allow analysts to edit or delete the TALON reports.....
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<b>I <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=107938">posted this</a>, last August:</b>
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032301605.html
.....In 2004, three MZM employees served as staff consultants to the presidential commission investigating prewar Iraq intelligence, which was run by federal Judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). One of the three was retired Lt. Gen. James C. King, who then was a senior vice president of MZM for national security. King, who before joining MZM had been director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, played a consultant's role in the establishment of CIFA in 2002 before MZM received its first contracts from that agency.
The Silberman-Robb commission report in 2005 recommended that CIFA play a bigger role in the government's counterterrorism activities. In an interview, Silberman said King was not involved in the commission's recommendation that CIFA get more work. "That recommendation was not from King," Silberman said. .....
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...on April 23, 2007, I posted about Cheney's long acquaintance with Wade and whether it was Cheney's office that granted MZM it's first GOV contract:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=17
<h3>But....on page 16...the Report states that illegally gathered Talon records were deleted even earlier:</h3>
Quote:
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
We could not determine whether USNORTHCOM complied with the DoD 90-day retention review policy <h3>because all TALON reports were deleted from JPEN on November 30, 2005<h3>, without being archived, and the system was turned off in June 2006....
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CIFA "checked up" on this "suspicious", potential domestic "Threat":
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_...y_archive.html
...and then....there was this:
Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001319.php
Defense Domestic Spying Chief Out; Here's His Email
By Justin Rood - August 10, 2006, 5:30 PM
As the Washington Post's Walter Pincus <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901700.html">noted</a> today, the director and deputy director of the Pentagon's controversial domestic intelligence branch are stepping down simultaneously. In a very understated way, Pincus manages to raise an eyebrow at the fact both men decided to retire at exactly the same time, amid ongoing investigations that threaten to touch their operations.
The organization, known as "CIFA" -- for Counterintelligence Field Activity -- was first in hot water for keeping track of anti-war demonstrators and peace groups. Later, it became known that a company deeply involved in the Cunningham corruption scandal had played an important role in developing the center, and held numerous contracts to provide the center with staff, technology and support. It was created in 2003, largely through efforts by Burtt and James King, a senior executive at the scandal-linked company, MZM.
A friend of the site sent us a copy of Burtt's announcement to CIFA staff, which we've verified as authentic:
<b>From: Burtt, David (GOV)
Sent: Wed 8/9/2006 11:29 AM
To: All_CIFA
Cc:
Subject: A Message from the Director
For the past four years, I have been privileged to serve as your Director and be part of the CIFA family. It has been an honor to serve in that capacity. I am especially proud of all of you and what you have accomplished for the CI Community, for the overall CI mission, and for your co-workers here at CIFA.
Today, I want to share with you my decision to resign as Director and retire from government service. My last day in the office will be August 31. I did not make this decision without trepidation, but the time is right to move on to the next phase of my career.
Mr. Hefferon has also decided to retire, after over 31 years of federal service.
In the interim, Mr. Dan Baur will serve as Director, CIFA and Mr. John O'Hara will serve as Deputy Director.
Thank you all for your hard work and dedication.
-- Dave Burtt</p>
We're told Burtt and his deputy are spending their last days trying to figure out how to spy on their own going-away happy hour. (No, really. That's a joke.)
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<h3>Background (nearly in chronological order....oldest to newest:</h3>
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/
Is the Pentagon spying on Americans?
Secret database obtained by NBC News tracks ‘suspicious’ domestic groups
By Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit
Updated: 5:18 p.m. CT Dec 14, 2005
WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.
“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.
“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It's an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We're not doing anything illegal.”
The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.
“I think Americans should be concerned that the military, in fact, has reached too far,” says NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin.
The Department of Defense declined repeated requests by NBC News for an interview. A spokesman said that all domestic intelligence information is “properly collected” and involves “protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel.” The military has always had a legitimate “force protection” mission inside the U.S. to protect its personnel and facilities from potential violence. But the Pentagon now collects domestic intelligence that goes beyond legitimate concerns about terrorism or protecting U.S. military installations, say critics.
Four dozen anti-war meetings
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database.
The DOD has strict guidelines (.PDF link), adopted in December 1982, that limit the extent to which they can collect and retain information on U.S. citizens.
Still, the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”
The increased monitoring disturbs some military observers. .....
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10481600/
Senator demands investigation of spy database
Pentagon defends domestic intelligence collection, vows to cooperate
By Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit
Updated: 12:07 p.m. CT Dec 15, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — A Florida senator is demanding an investigation into a secret Pentagon database that collects information on American anti-war activists. As NBC News reported first on Dec. 13, the Pentagon has been monitoring anti-war groups across the country.
Wednesday, some members of a Florida anti-war group called "The Truth Project" demanded that the Pentagon turn over all information collected about their group.
And Florida Senator Bill Nelson wrote Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asking how this peaceful group could be listed a "threat" in a previously secret Pentagon database.
"When the Pentagon starts going into a Quaker meeting house in Florida, then it's a question of invasion of privacy," says Nelson, R-Fla.
Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman defended the collection of domestic intelligence in the database, which lists 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a 10-month period. The spokesman said the military has "a legitimate interest in protecting its installations and... people, and to the extent that they use information collected by law enforcement agencies to do that, that's... appropriate."
Some incidents in the database do refer to FBI reports. But information on a weekly protest at an Atlanta recruiting station comes not from law enforcement, but from the Army's 902nd military intelligence group. So does a report on a protest at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
"This document, it's a clue that shows the level of surveillance, the level of domestic surveillance that the U.S. military is now involved in," says Bill Arkin, an NBC News military analyst.
The Pentagon still refuses to say how it's collecting this information, whether the military itself is spying on protest groups, or asking local law enforcement to do surveillance and report back.
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11751418/
<h3>Pentagon admits errors in spying on protesters
NBC: Official says peaceful demonstrators’ names erased from database</h3>
MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 7:45 a.m. CT March 10, 2006
The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats. The letter followed an NBC report focusing on the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, report.
Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Roger W. Rogalski’s letter came in reply to a memo from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who had demanded answers about the process of identifying domestic protesters as suspicious and removing their names when they are wrongly listed.
“The recent review of the TALON Reporting System ... identified a small number of reports that did not meet the TALON reporting criteria. Those reports dealt with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting DoD facilities or personnel,” Rogalski wrote on Wednesday.
“While the information was of value to military commanders, it should not have been retained in the Cornerstone database.”
Threats directed against Defense Department
In 2003, the Defense Department directed a little-known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), to establish and “maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.” Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established TALON at that time.
The original NBC News report, from December, focused on a secret 400-page Defense Department document listing more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a 10-month period. One such incident was a small group of activists meeting in a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., to plan a protest against military recruiting at local high schools.
In his Wednesday letter, Rogalski said such anomalies in the TALON database had been removed.
“They did not pertain to potential foreign terrorist activity and thus should never have been entered into the Cornerstone database. These reports have since been removed from the Cornerstone database and refresher training on intelligence oversight and database management is being given,” Rogalski wrote.
Rogalski said only 43 names were improperly added to the database, and those were from protest-related reports such as the Quaker meeting in Florida.
“All reports concerning protest activities have been purged,” the letter said.
TALON reports provide “non-validated domestic threat information” from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in the Cornerstone CIFA database. The reports include details on potential surveillance of military bases, stolen vehicles, bomb threats and planned antiwar protests. In the program’s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports.
Nearly four dozen antiwar meetings listed
The Defense Department document provides an inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence gathering since 9/11. The database includes nearly four dozen antiwar meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center, according to NBC News’ Lisa Myers, who first wrote about the story in December.
Among those listed were a large antiwar protest in Los Angeles in March 2004 that included effigies of President Bush and antiwar protest banners, a planned protest against military recruiters in December 2004 in Boston, and a planned protest in April 2004 at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat, and a column in the database concludes: “U.S. group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database.
The Department of Defense has strict guidelines (.PDF link ), adopted in December 1982, that limit the extent to which it can collect and retain information on U.S. citizens.
Still, the database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the Internet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”
Earlier domestic intelligence gathering
The military’s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is a trend, Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer, told NBC News when the report was first broadcast.
During the Vietnam War, Pyle revealed the Defense Department monitored and infiltrated antiwar and civil rights protests in an article he published in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.
The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed the military had conducted probes on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them antiwar protesters and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.
But Pyle said some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes.
“The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,” he said.
NBC News' Lisa Myers and the NBC Investigative Unit contributed to this report.....
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Quote:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfile...s20061012.html
Documents Shed New Light on Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists <h3>(10/12/2006)</h3>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Defense Department Tracked Quakers, Student Groups
NEW YORK -- Documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal new details of Pentagon surveillance of Americans opposed to the Iraq war, including Quakers and student groups. The documents show that the Pentagon was keeping tabs on non-violent protesters by collecting information and storing it in a military anti-terrorism database.
"There is simply no reason why the United States military should be monitoring the peaceful activities of American citizens who oppose U.S. war policies," said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. "When information about non-violent protest activity is included in a military anti-terrorism database, all Americans should be concerned about the unchecked authority this administration has seized in the name of fighting terrorism."
The documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the Pentagon was secretly conducting surveillance of protest activities, anti-war organizations and groups opposed to military recruitment policies. The Pentagon shared the information with other government agencies through the Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) database.
The TALON database was intended to track groups or individuals with links to terrorism, but the documents released today show that the Pentagon gathered information on anti-war protesters using sources from the Department of Homeland Security, local police departments and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
Among the documents are reports on protest activities across the country organized or supported by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peace group. The source for the information is identified as "a special agent of the federal protective service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security," who is apparently on the AFSC e-mail list.
One document, which is labeled "potential terrorist activity," lists events such as a "Stop the War NOW!" rally in Akron, Ohio on March 19, 2005. The source noted that the rally "will have a March and Reading of Names of War Dead" and that marchers would pass a military recruitment station and the local FBI office along the way.
Also included in the documents is information on a series of protests mistakenly identified as taking place in Springfield, Illinois (the protests actually occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts). According to the document, "Source received an e-mail from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), e-mail address: [REDACTED] that stated that on March 18-20, a series of protest actions were planned in the Springfield, IL area… to focus on actions at military recruitment offices with the goals to include: raising awareness, education, visibility in community, visibility to recruiters as part of a national day of action."
"Spying on citizens for merely executing their constitutional rights of free speech and peaceful assembly is chilling and marks a troubling trend," said Joyce Miller, AFSC Assistant General Secretary for Justice and Human Rights. "Our country is built upon a system of checks and balances. The Pentagon’s actions violate the rule of law and strike a severe blow against our Constitution."
Another document provides further details of surveillance of a protest planned by the Broward Anti-War Coalition during the Fort Lauderdale Air & Sea Show, which was previously revealed in an NBC news report. The document released today reveals that the Miami-Dade Police Department provided the Defense Department with information on the protest, and that the U.S. Army Recruiting Command and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Miami were also briefed on the planned protest, which was intended to "counter military recruitment and the ‘pro-war’ message with ‘guerrilla theater and other forms of subversive propaganda.’"
The ACLU said it is concerned that the Defense Department cites acts of civil disobedience and vandalism as cause to label anti-war protests as "radical" and potential terrorist threats in some of the TALON reports. In a document listing upcoming Atlanta area protests by the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, the Pentagon - citing the Department of Homeland Security as its source - states that the Students for Peace and Justice network poses a threat to DOD personnel.
To support that claim, the TALON report cites previous acts of civil disobedience in California and Texas, including sit-ins, disruptions at recruitment offices and street theater. Describing one protest in Austin, Texas, the document notes: "The protesters blocked the entrance to the recruitment office with two coffins, one draped with an American flag and the other covered with an Iraqi flag, taped posters on the window of the office and chanted, ‘No more war and occupation. You don’t have to die for an education.’"
"The Pentagon has gone too far in collecting information on Americans who pose no real threat to national security," said Wizner. "It is an abuse of power and an abuse of trust for the military to play any role in monitoring critics of administration policies."
The documents released today are online at:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/...l20060828.html (Florida protests)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/...l20060912.html (Georgia, California and Texas protests)
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/...l20060912.html (AFSC protests in Massachusetts and Ohio)
More information on government surveillance of Americans is online at: www.aclu.org/spyfiles.
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<h2>Nine Days after the ACLU Press Release....There was a "small" fire...:</h2>
Quote:
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/vau...G/10/25-13.HTM
Blaze guts spy unit's building at Ft. Meade
By RYAN BAGWELL and PAMELA WOOD Staff Writers
Subscribe to the Maryland Gazette
Army investigators are still looking for the cause of a six-alarm fire that ravaged the home of a military intelligence unit at Fort George G. Meade on Friday.
The blaze destroyed the roof of Nathan Hale Hall, a four-story brick building that houses offices of the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group.
Jennifer Downing, a spokesman for the post, and Christopher Grey, a spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, said Monday that no cause or damage estimate had been determined.
Thick brown smoke billowed Friday for hours from Nathan Hale Hall, a four-story World War II-era building home to the 902nd, the Army's largest counterintelligence unit with more than 1,100 people.
Sixty-nine firefighters started streaming to the scene just after 3 p.m., said Lt. Russ Davies, a spokesman for the county fire department. Firefighters from Fort Meade and Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George's counties battled the six-alarm blaze, according to Lt. Col. James Peterson, director of emergency services at Fort Meade.
Col. Peterson said part of the roof of the three-story building collapsed onto a lower floor before the fire was contained. Efforts to contain the flames were complicated by strong winds.
"We don't really know the cause. We just know it started on the roof of the structure," he said. He added that minor construction was under way in the area of the roof where the fire started.
The building was evacuated and everyone got out, he said, but one firefighter twisted his leg fighting the blaze.
Army CID representatives forced a reporter and photographer from the Maryland Gazette to leave the base about 30 minutes after they were allowed in. Officials told the photographer to erase all photos from his digital camera, and started ordering dozens of onlookers to clear the scene by about 5 p.m.
Nicknamed "The Deuce," the 902nd has been led by Col. Christopher L. Winne since July. It conducts "counterintelligence activities in support of Army commanders and to protect Army forces, secrets and technologies by detecting, identifying, neutralizing and exploiting foreign intelligence services and international terrorist threats," according to the Web site.
Its "core competencies" include espionage, computer forensics, surveillance and polygraph, the Web site states.
Hale Hall is named for Capt. Nathan Hale, a spy for the Continental Army who was hung by the British during fighting in New York in 1776. He's known for his famous last words: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
Staff Writer Scott Daugherty contributed to this story.
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Quote:
http://cryptome.org/perfect-fire.htm
http://cryptome.org/902d-mig/902d-mig.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/200608210...02nd/index.asp
http://web.archive.org/web/200410130.../pamphlets.htm
Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200411011...iiac/index.htm
.....The CIIAC stood up on 1 November 2001, as the Army's Counterintelligence Analysis Control Element (CI ACE), with an initial focus on building the threat picture from a CI perspective for Force Protection and Counterterrorism missions in support of Homeland Defense.
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...112600857.html
Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
Fears of Post-9/11 Terrorism Spur Proposals for New Powers
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 27, 2005; Page A06
The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.
The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, <h3>would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts</h3> -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.....
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The CIIAC has proven to be an effective force multiplier for the 902d and is expanding its role of developing the threat picture in the areas of Technology Protection, Foreign Intelligence Services and Computer Network Operations.....
....The CIIAC team is composed of both military and civilian analysts whose objective is to create a comprehensive situational awareness picture that will drive and direct CI operations.
Strength Through Vigilance
Group Distinctive Unit Insignia 902d Military Intelligence Group
Army CIIAC
<h3>Building 4553 Llewellyn Avenue</h3>
Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-5910...
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102001641.html
Fire Damages Fort Meade Intelligence Building
Army's Losses From Quick-Spreading Blaze Won't Harm National Security, Official Says
By Steve Vogel and Raymond McCaffrey
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 21, 2006; Page B01
A Fort Meade building that houses Army counterintelligence activities was heavily damaged yesterday in a stubborn and spectacular six-alarm fire that burned for hours, generating thick clouds of smoke that streamed and billowed in a brisk wind.
The blaze broke out on the Army post in Anne Arundel County and 3:05 p.m. and continued to burn well after 10 p.m. The fire damaged upper portions of the sprawling three-story building, which is headquarters to the 902nd Military Intelligence Group and houses several contractors, officials said.....
......Peterson said the fire was largely contained to the building's attic, which is used as office space by the intelligence group. A portion of the roof collapsed, and parts of it were "a total loss," Peterson said.
<h3>The building remained intact.</h3> "The structure did not collapse, and there does not seem to be any danger of it," said Rich Lane, a spokesman for the post. Lane said that no estimates of damage were available but that he expected it would be significant structurally and monetarily.
The cause of the blaze, which apparently began on the peaked roof of the red-brick building, was not immediately known and was under investigation......
.....Downing declined to discuss the building's contents, calling them "sensitive in nature."...
.....Another official said most of the documents in the damaged section are locked in fire-resistant containers and backed up elsewhere. Nothing lost at the building would adversely affect national security, said Donald Shiles, director of the Technical Counterintelligence School at Fort Meade.........
As darkness fell, motorists on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway called U.S. Park Police to ask about the glow created in the sky by the flames. Park Police said no roads were reported closed, and rush-hour traffic was not affected.
At one point, flames appeared to leap from everywhere on the roof of a section near one end of the multi-wing building. Flaming portions of the roof were visible amid streams of water and clouds of black and gray smoke.
.........Anne Arundel firefighters, called immediately to help the post fire department, sent the amount of equipment and personnel that would be used to battle a four-alarm fire.
"We originally sent three engines and a truck, and it escalated from that," said Lt. Russ Davies, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel Fire Department. Before the blaze was under control, firefighters from Prince George's and Howard counties joined in the effort.
Firefighters in a ladder truck directed streams of water onto the blaze, which could be seen on an Army video.
Fort Meade is home to more than 30,000 workers.
<h3>The fire did not affect the National Security Agency, whose headquarters is also at the post.</h3>
As described on its Web site, the 902nd group conducts counterintelligence activities in support of Army commanders and protects Army forces, secrets and technology by detecting, identifying, neutralizing and exploiting foreign intelligence services and international terrorist threats
A number of military intelligence units are based at the post.
Staff writers Walter Pincus, Sandhya Somashekhar and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
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<b>Lemme get this straight.....the fire started at "the peak of the roof"....wen from a 3 to a 6 alarmer.....burned for seven hours...the fire pictures arvailable in the link...two quote boxes back....but....the building is "intact"?</b>
Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...64146505_x.htm
2007-04-26
Pentagon urged to close secret database
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon's new intelligence undersecretary is recommending the Defense Department shut down a controversial classified database that has been criticized for improperly collecting information on anti-war groups and citizens.
James R. Clapper Jr., who stepped into the job two weeks ago, "does not believe they merit continuing the program as currently constituted, particularly in light of its image in the Congress and the media," said Pentagon spokesman Maj. Patrick Ryder.
Clapper forwarded his recommendation to Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week, but no final decision has been made. Gates has been traveling in the Middle East and eastern Europe for most of the last two weeks.
Ryder said the Defense Department needs a way to assess potential threats, "but we must lay to rest the distrust and concern about the Department's commitment to civil rights that have been sustained by the problems found in the TALON reporting system."
The database has been under critical review since it was publicly disclosed in December 2005.
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Quote:
http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002537553.html
CQ TODAY
June 21, 2007 – 10:43 p.m.
Fight Over Secret Satellite Program Is Revived
By Tim Starks, CQ Staff
It has been more than two and a half years since John D. Rockefeller IV and Ron Wyden took to the Senate floor to criticize a secret intelligence program that, they said, was inefficient, too expensive and, in any case, unnecessary.
The senators didn’t name the project, but at the time, it was widely identified as the successor to the “Misty” program of stealth satellites that cannot be detected in orbit. Republican leaders considered disciplinary action against the senators for talking about a secret program — even though they didn’t identify it.
Now, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, has done essentially the same thing the senators did back then: talked about a major spy program without indicating which one.....
.....A Rumsfeld-Backed Program
Former Defense Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld and his intelligence undersecretary, Stephen A. Cambone, had been supporters of the system, sources said. So, too, was Florida Republican Porter J. Goss, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and until last year the head of the CIA.
But McConnell and Cambone’s replacement at the Pentagon, James R. Clapper Jr., have turned a skeptical eye on the intelligence undertakings of Rumsfeld and Cambone. <h3>Clapper, for instance, began shortly after his confirmation in April to shut down the anti-terror database known as Talon</h3>, a controversial program that at one point had monitored anti-war groups..........
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Quote:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...087%250A&cid=0
News Analysis
Comparing Today’s Tactics With Those Used in the Past
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: June 27, 2007
.....Comparisons between different historical eras are always tricky. With an incomplete account of C.I.A. misdeeds in its first quarter century from the so-called family jewels, released this week with many redactions, and a presumably even more incomplete knowledge of the spy agencies’ actions since 2001, such a comparison is inevitably flawed.
But it is also irresistible. And it raises a provocative question: do the actions of the intelligence agencies in the era of Al Qaeda, which include domestic eavesdropping without warrants, secret detentions and interrogations arguably bordering on torture, already match or even eclipse those of the Vietnam War period?.....
........James Bamford, whose books on American intelligence cover the period from the Korean War to the Iraq war, took a similar view. Mr. Bamford said the scale of the National Security Agency’s interception of phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans and others in the United States in recent years — which prompted a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union in which Mr. Bamford is a plaintiff — almost certainly dwarfs the electronic surveillance and the review of mail carried out by the N.S.A. and the C.I.A. in the 1960s.
If the collection details government spying on Vietnam War protesters, <h3>it has a contemporary echo in the Pentagon’s admission that a database called Talon improperly recorded the activities of Iraq war protesters, he said.</h3>
“These documents are supposed to show the worst of the worst back then,” Mr. Bamford said. <h3>“But what’s going on today makes the family jewels pale by comparison.”</h3>
The controversial activities of the campaign against terrorism took place despite the changes enacted after the scandals of the 1970s.
The Bush administration chose to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, created in 1978 to oversee eavesdropping on American soil. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees, created to make sure past abuses would never be repeated, did little to rein in the N.S.A. wiretapping program or to set limits on interrogation practices until news reports set off a furor....
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