DoD Says Threat Database Included Improper Info
Of the 13,000 entries in the Pentagon’s TALON database of potential threats to the Department of Defense facilities and personnel, some two percent did not involve threats and should not have been retained, Pentagon officials acknowledged yesterday.
The TALON system “should be used only to report information regarding international terrorist activity,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England in a March 30 memo (pdf).
See “Pentagon Threat Database Kept Reports It Shouldn’t Have” by Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, April 6.
The fact that the TALON database included information on American citizens engaged in peaceful protest activities was first disclosed several months ago by NBC News and researcher Bill Arkin.
The DoD experience provides an empirical basis to question the propriety of intelligence collection under the President’s warrantless surveillance program. But investigations of that program have been blocked in Congress.
If this proposed rule were enacted it would have deleterious effects on government workers in general and federal researchers and scientists, specifically.
When we introduce “at-will” employment to government employees, we also introduce the potential for environments where people are more concerned about self-preservation than service to others.
There is no better time to re-invigorate America’s innovation edge by investing in R&D to create and capture “industries of the future,” re-shoring capital and expertise, and working closely with allies to expand our capabilities while safeguarding those technologies that are critical to our security.
Russia currently maintains nearly 5,460 nuclear warheads, with an estimated 1,718 deployed. This represents a slight decrease in total warheads from previous years but still positions Russia as the world’s largest nuclear power alongside the United States.