A-Infos (en) US, BAAM #36 of the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement - Government to Restart Program to Watch Peaceful Civilians by Joseph Caye

TALON(Threat and Local Observation Notice) was a program ostensibly created to track the 
activities of those deemed potential terrorist threats. The aim was to gather loads of 
raw, unfiltered data from citizen reports, and use it to stop disruptive or violent 
activity. The TALON program grew out of Eagle Eyes, a program created by the Air Force 
Office of Special Investigation that called on the denizens of each air force base to keep 
an eye on their scheming neighbors and report suspicious activity. TALON was essentially 
the same thing, but it was run under the Department of Defense, and so was no longer 
specific to Air Force bases, and it required hundreds of people and more than a billion 
dollars to collect and catalog the thousands of reports they received every year.

While it existed, if you had reason to believe someone was involved in any activity you 
deemed “suspicious,” you could call the toll free number, 1800-CALL-SPY, and leave an 
anonymous, unverified voicemail for the Pentagon. Like many government programs created in 
response to 9/11, it attacked our personal freedoms and instilled anxiety and distrust in 
many people. This is the program they’re going to revive.

Despite the government’s insistence that this program was for keeping tabs on those that 
threatened national security—those that would try to create fear and insecurity through 
violent force—they did not discriminate in their spying. Even the vehemently non-violent 
were subject to the government’s scrutiny. In a report regarding a group of Quakers near 
Springfield, IL, a concerned citizen warned the Department of Homeland Security that these 
potential terrorists were planning an action against a military recruitment center that 
would involve “raising awareness, education, visibility in community, and visibility to 
recruiters as part of a national day of action focused on military recruiters. “ When it 
was discovered that TALON had been policing a large number of lawful anti-war activists, 
the Department of Defense shut down the program after a lengthy bureaucratic process.

The new government program that watches peaceful US residents is FICOR, Foreign 
Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records. Foreign is a very broad term that 
also includes those treading on US soil or in US water. In FICOR’s description, one piece 
of data they will try to collect are Social Security Numbers of suspects, and since only 
US citizens have SSNs ,then part of the program’s stated intent is to track US citizens. 
Although government spokespersons have said that the program will not commit the same 
civil liberties transgressions as TALON, there is nothing in FICOR’s stated intent that 
would restrict them from spying on citizens. They only have to identify someone as a 
person who poses a threat to the US or someone who could potentially become a threat. 
Threat is a broad term that could mean anything from a genuine violent attack that could 
harm or kill people to a planned upheaval of the imperialist, blood thirsty, 
America-the-indomitable mindset via non-violent slogans and educational literature. And 
potential is every bit as infinite as it is small, and impossible to identify until the 
potential has been spent.

US officials have tried to divorce the old publicity headaches (keeping records on those 
exercising a constitutional right and CIFA’s involvement in a major contracting scandal, 
which if successful, may have created a military secret police organization) from the new 
program, but there is little to separate the two. The Defense Intelligence Agency is the 
intelligence branch of the Department of Defense. Under the Bush administration, the DIA 
started CIFA, Counterintelligence Field Activity, which ran TALON. When CIFA was shut down 
in 2008 the DIA created the DCHC, the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence 
Center. The DCHC will be in charge of FICOR. Not only does the DCHC run out of the same 
offices that CIFA once occupied, but FICOR will inherit the records from the TALON 
program, and many of the employees stuck around. “Shutting down” meant little more than 
that their office ordered new letterhead stationery. There is very little to separate the 
two programs, and nothing to substantiate claims that they will stop prying into the lives 
of peaceful citizens. This is the same program that watches pacifists because they’re 
considered a national security threat. Although the new program will not have law 
enforcement powers itself, it will share the information it gathers to federal, state and 
local law enforcement through an electronic database. The violations to our civil 
liberties they once committed illicitly will now be done with the long arm of the law 
giving them a pat on the back.

Although Obama professes to run an administration sensitive to the civil liberties of even 
suspected terrorists, he’s not as transparent as his PR team makes him out to be. Guantamo 
is still detaining suspects six months after its very public date of closure, and the 
Department of Defense is taking over the torture facilities Obama’s CIA “closed.” The 
change between the Bush administration and the Obama is subtle, and doesn’t include more 
freedom or privacy.
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