When Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed last year that a civilian army be recruited to snoop on their neighbors, privacy advocates and Congressional leaders gagged.
Now, it seems, Ashcroft's Operation TIPS is back -- and now, it's being run by the Pentagon.
Brian McWilliams writes in Wired News:
To track domestic terrorist threats against the military, the Pentagon is creating a new database that will contain "raw, non-validated" reports of "anomalous activities" within the United States.
According to a Department of Defense memorandum, the system, known as Talon, will provide a mechanism to collect and rapidly share reports "by concerned citizens and military members regarding suspicious incidents."
Talon was described in a May 2 memorandum to top Pentagon brass from Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the memo, Wolfowitz directed the heads of military departments and agencies to begin producing Talon reports immediately.
