It seems that I’m on a bit of a news/politics kick these days. I guess it’s true what they say about old habits being hard to break. Anyhow I just came across this “gem” and though I would pass it along to everyone else who might not have a) been aware of this shift in policy, or b) weren’t aware it was happening in the first place.

The Pentagon has been collecting information on persons of interest within the United States in an effort to thwart terrorism. The program is known as Talon and has been ongoing for several years now. It was started sometime after 9/11. For those who don’t know it is illegal under federal law for either the Department of Defense or the CIA to collect intelligence related information on any American citizen. To get around this the Department of Homeland defense was brought into play. It basically allows the DOD and Homeland to establish liasons with one another and circumvent the pesky law about not spying on your own citizens.

None of this would even be known except that in 2005 it was revealed that the Talon program was collecting information on anti-war protesters. Since that time it has more or less been an issue of legal limbo with the ACLU taking the fore in legally dealing with Talon. Until today that is.

According to news reports the Pentagon has dropped the Talon database. Sounds good, right? Not so fast. While Talon is being dropped they won’t stop collecting data. It will just be sent to the FBI until the Pentagon establishes a new program.

So the questions on my mind are as follows -

1. Are we in America to a point where our personal freedoms have out of necessity become secondary to our national security?
2. What is the limit that should be placed on a program like TALON?
3. Should the Pentagon (or other agency) have the full authority to act on data it collects in accordance with our established laws, or should they be mandated to turn a blind eye to these things if they happen to stumble across that kind of information?