Pentagon Is Said to Mishandle a Counterterrorism Database

Pentagon Is Said to Mishandle a Counterterrorism Database
By DAVID S. CLOUD / NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16pentagon.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Pentagon analysts appear not to have followed guidelines that require deleting information on American citizens and groups from a counterterrorism database within three months if they pose no security threats, Pentagon officials said on Thursday.

As a result, dozens of alerts on antiwar meetings and peaceful protests appear to have remained in the database, even though analysts had decided that those involved presented no threat to military bases or personnel, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program is classified.

The requirement to delete information after 90 days is in a set of procedures for handling reports entered into the Defense Department database, which is known as the Threat and Local Observation Notice reporting system, or Talon. Pentagon officials on Thursday refused to release the full list of procedures for handling information on citizens.

Details of the database were disclosed this week by NBC News, which said it had obtained a 400-page document on more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country entered into the system in a 10-month period from 2004 to 2005.

A summary of the document put out by NBC said that among the incidents monitored was a "protest against Army recruiters" in Wayne, N.J., last April that the database notes happened "without incident."

Pentagon officials said Thursday that the Talon program was created in 2003 as a central repository of possible threats against military personnel and installations. Tips and other unverified information from military personnel, law enforcement agencies and intelligence entities are entered into the system and evaluated, they said.

Stephen A. Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence, ordered a review of the database on Wednesday, looking at "retention of information about any U.S. persons" and whether guidelines for collecting such information are consistent with current laws, officials said.