A-Infos (en) US, Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement BAAM #36 - P. 4 - 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 some-
one was involved in any activity you deemed
“suspicious,” you could call the toll free num-
ber, 1- 800-CALL-SPY, and leave an anony-
mous, 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 go-
ing 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-vio-
lent were subject to the government’s scru-
tiny. In a report regarding a group of Quak-
ers near Springfield, IL, a concerned citizen
warned the Department of Homeland Securi-
ty that these potential terrorists were planning
an action against a military recruitment center
that would involve “raising awareness, edu-
cation, 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 pro-
gram after a lengthy bureaucratic process.
The new government program that watches
peaceful US residents is FICOR, Foreign In-
telligence 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 Secu-
rity 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 imperi-
alist, blood thirsty, America-the-indomitable
mindset via non-violent slogans and educa-
tional literature. And potential is every bit as
infinite as it is small, and impossible to iden-
tify 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 creat-
ed 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 re-
cords 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 paci-
fists 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 fed-
eral, 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 liber-
ties 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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