BRANCACCIO: October 4th, 2002. An alarming report works its way thru a sheriff's office in central Florida. A confidential source warns the Brevard County authorities that a planned peace protest at nearby Kennedy Space Center may turn violent. Calling the protest group "sinister," the source warns "something special" is in store.
The day of the rally, captured on home video, sheriff's deputies and NASA security officials are everywhere, ready for the worst.
PROTESTER: I came today to protest against the anti-weapons and nuclear power in the space program.
BRANCACCIO: The "sinister" protestors. Funny, maybe, but something very serious is going on here. It's the story of just why the authorities got so nervous about a bunch of law-abiding citizens. It turns out, the confidential source who raised the alarm was our own United States Air Force.
PROTESTER: How come you think it's so important to be here and watch us all day long?
BRANCACCIO: The government had been watching the group for a while. The Air Force, worried about terrorist attacks on its facilities here in the U.S., had set out to identify people they believed might be a threat.
ARKIN: Well, I think that after 9/11, the whole paradigm for the military changed.
BRANCACCIO: William Arkin has long experience studying these issues. Arkin is a former military intelligence analyst, and taught at an Air Force school for senior officers. He writes about national security issues for THE WASHINGTON POST.
ARKIN: This distinction between the home game and the away game sort of got introduced. The notion that if we only played the away game, then we were neglecting the reality of the fact that we ourselves were vulnerable in the United States.
BRANCACCIO: To play the home game, the Air Force set up a program. It's called Eagle Eyes. Its motto: "Watch. Report. Protect." Eagle Eyes encourages anyone and everyone to report people they regard as "suspicious." The program even has a list of 24-hour phone numbers to call.
ARKIN: I could see where, in an environment of greater paranoia and in an environment of "another 9/11," anyone who seems suspicious all of a sudden becomes the object of unwarranted attention.
BRANCACCIO: In 2003, the Pentagon took the Eagle Eyes concept one step further, despite false alarms like the one in Florida. Soon, all military branches had to start collecting reports about potential threats to their bases. This newer, bigger program is called TALON, for "threat and local observation notice."
BURTT: I would say TALON is comparable to a neighborhood watch kind of a program.
BRANCACCIO: David Burtt is the Pentagon official in charge of TALON. This is first time he's ever sat down on television for an interview about the program.
BURTT: I worked in the Pentagon, where we are now, on September 11th, 2001. What we were criticized for at the time, in part, was not being able to find the dots, not being able to connect the dots.
BRANCACCIO: TALON was the brainchild of former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In creating TALON, Wolfowitz ordered that the program amass "raw information," even if those allegations are not "validated." And those raw reports can come from any member of the public, even a nosy neighbor. The goal: no clue about terrorism overlooked.
Unsubstantiated reports, pouring in from the public, reviewed by a secretive Pentagon agency. Critics argued it was ripe for abuse. And in fact, that is exactly what happened.
Details about TALON started coming out a few months ago. The program was not only collecting information on innocent peace groups, but also classifying some of those groups as a threat to the military. William Arkin broke the story.
ARKIN: First, they were doing stupid things which just should piss people off in terms of a waste of time and energy. But second, they were violating their own rules and the law.
BRANCACCIO: Arkin says TALON violated federal privacy laws which restrict the government's ability to traffic in such information — laws that were passed as a result of the domestic spying scandals of the 1960's and 70's. The Pentagon confirms that TALON has collected some 13,000 reports — a number that, until now, was kept secret.
ARKIN: This is a database of suspicious incidents...
BRANCACCIO: Arkin got his hands on nearly 1,500 of those reports. He gave us a look. Here's one which shows the government monitored the website of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Clark's website features a call to bring American troops home from Iraq.
And here's a Pentagon document marked "secret." it's a summary of TALON reports from 2005. It shows the military was worried about, quote, "increased communication and encouragement between protest groups." it also suggests the military had spies in the field, attending demonstrations, even taking "vehicle descriptions."
BRANCACCIO: Now, you're acknowledging that some mistakes were made here?
BURTT: Correct.
BRANCACCIO: How extensive was the problem that you uncovered, in your view?
BURTT: Hey, one is a problem in my view. One mistake for American civil liberties is a problem.
BRANCACCIO: The thing is we got a a look at a piece of the TALON database, and you look through it there's all sorts of stuff that doesn't look like the sort of thing that would give you any information on terrorism.
BURTT: There was a policy put out on what the reports of TALON were supposed to be. There was ambiguity in the sense of the way people interpreted that policy.
BRANCACCIO: Of the 13,000 reports in TALON, the Pentagon claims only 186 had anything to do with peace activists. Burtt says he's tightened the rules to make sure protest groups are no longer targeted. But whether those bad reports have been erased from all government computers is a different question.
It's here where those TALON reports get sent: the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado. The Northern Command is in charge of protecting the U.S. mainland. Their most visible unit is NORAD, which watches the skies for Russian missiles. But Homeland Defense also means fighting terrorism. It's Northern Command that sifts through those TALON reports, sticking them in a master database. In turn, that database is shared with others in the military, and in civilian law enforcement.
BRANCACCIO: Can you assure law abiding Americans that the data that was in TALON that shouldn't have been there didn't percolate out elsewhere into other government databases?
BURTT: I can never 100% assure that. I can tell you that this is what we have done. We have looked at the database. We have taken out the information that didn't belong. We have then gone back to the entities that are involved in the database and let them know that that information is out, and they should take it out of theirs.
BRANCACCIO: There is a lot at stake. People worry that if their name is not removed from a government database, they might be denied a job that requires a security clearance — or maybe they'll end up on an airport watch list — all because they were falsely flagged as a threat to national security.
The controversy over the TALON database does not end with the data on peace groups. In fact, it's loaded with reports that strike some experts as pretty humdrum information.
ARKIN: They range anything from "a member of the military lost his ID card" to "Chinese crewmember of a merchant ship seen videotaping the port of Corpus Christi."
BRANCACCIO: Arkin says this presents its own problem — one of effectiveness. Move the cursor to the right, and you'll see another feature of TALON. Both of these seemingly innocuous incidents were judged to be credible threats.
Arkin, himself a former military intelligence analyst, doesn't question the value of tracking terrorist threats. But, he says, when too many reports get labeled "credible," the database starts losing all meaning.
ARKIN: If that is counterterrorism, then it begins to create the picture that basically any anomaly associated with the military is a threat of terrorism.
BRANCACCIO: There's a lot of stuff that even a professional intelligence analyst agreed just doesn't belong in there. Stuff like taxicab driver with dark complexion waiting in front of gates.
BURTT: Let me say this, first of all, I think the red herring there may be "dark, swarthy," whatever your description was there. The key there is, and we've seen this in many instances, that could be indicative of a surveillance kind of activity.
BRANCACCIO: Can you point to an example where, for instance, TALON has led to stopping a violent terrorist act in this country?
BURTT: I won't get into specifics here but there have been examples of where we have done this, brought that information together, given it to the FBI, and the FBI is actively pursuing it as leads in terrorist investigations. So there are real world examples of successes here. And I think that's indicative of bringing these dots together so that we can better understand the environment that we're in.
BRANCACCIO: The Pentagon is doing a lot more than just sticking these dots — these reports — into a big computer. This Department of Defense brochure describes TALON's mission, saying it wants to "transform" the way that information is managed. Translation: the Pentagon believes it can analyze those dots to actually forecast acts of terrorism.
David Burtt runs TALON on a day-to-day basis. The bigger strategy is explained by Burtt's boss, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Robert Rogalski.
ROGALSKI: Sometimes, looking at those bits and pieces of information, this piece in itself may not have much relevancy. This piece over here may not have much relevancy. But the purpose of the TALON database was to be a repository. A place where these pieces of information, the pieces of the puzzle, the dots of information, if you will, could be brought together. Because then that could be a tip-off to security, law enforcement, counter intelligence, that "Hmm, maybe there's something going on here we need to pay more attention to."
BRANCACCIO: "Data mining" and "link analysis" are some of the words used to describe the Pentagon's work. TALON's budget is classified, but it's estimated the Pentagon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on the effort.
But the product of that analysis is only as good as the reports that get entered in the first place. Local law enforcement is not just an end user, a consumer, of TALON — they also contribute to TALON. And local police departments may be bringing their own dubious judgment to the effort.
NALL: We're going to draw the best picture ever! Yeah!
BRANCACCIO: Meet Jeff Nall. He and his wife Desiree are active in local politics in the community of Melbourne, Florida. Proud liberals, they helped formed a local organization called Patriots for Peace.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear...
BRANCACCIO: After President Bush was re-elected in 2004, Jeff and his fellow activists had an idea: hold a so-called "counter inaugural" at the local city hall where they would publicly reaffirm their liberal values. 34 others joined them for what would be a peaceful rally.
NALL: At some point, we were there after the ceremony had sort of ended, and we were holding signs, somebody says, "Look over there, what's going on? There's an officer with a camera pointed right at us."
BRANCACCIO: The local police didn't see the rally as so innocent. In fact, it's the police tape you've been watching. Nall enlisted the local ACLU to find out what was going on. He learned the videotape was the tip of the iceberg. Over the years, the local sheriff had written hundreds of pages of reports about Nall's group and others.
Kevin Aplin runs the local chapter of the ACLU.
APLIN: They refer to an e-mail address as the "suspect's" e-mail address. And that belongs to Jeff Nall. And then, here you see a whole series of people labeled as "persons of interest" that attended the event. And license tags that they took down of everybody who was at the park that day. So even if people that were there to just merely, you know, feed the pigeons could have been noted in this police report.
BRANCACCIO: The question becomes, if you're a, quote, suspect, suspected of what?
NALL: I have no way to put it into perspective, other than, suspect of what, terrorism? I mean, is that what we're digging at? Terrorism for standing out in front of City Hall? Saying I agree with the, you know, almost 50% of the country that voted against the President. I guess we're all terrorists.
BRANCACCIO: Rebecca Boettcher is a grandmother and former elementary school teacher. She's on the videotape, too. She says if some in the group knew they were going to be spied on, they might not have showed up.
BRANCACCIO: There's a concern that this kind of government surveillance might dissuade some people from wanting to speak out.
BOETTCHER: Yes, it is a concern. I know it does intimidate a lot of people.
BRANCACCIO: Until the Iraq war, Boettcher had never even participated in a demonstration. She was worried because a family member was in the Marines and was about to be deployed.
BRANCACCIO: And you do not feel like a subversive person?
BOETTCHER: No. No. Not at all. I'm labeled as a person of interest. That's a criminal labeling. I'm not a criminal.
BRANCACCIO: And here's what's most troubling to Boettcher. The local sheriff didn't keep his reports all to himself. 14 miles from downtown Melbourne, more than a 20 minute drive, is Patrick Air Force Base. Even though the counter-inaugural protest had nothing to do with the base, the sheriff sent his reports to security officials there. Now, Boettcher and Nall worry their names are in TALON, too.
NALL: We have to start asking, "Where is this headed?" If they have a bunch of information that says, "Well, you know, Joe Blow has been participating in all these actions we consider anti-government," what's the next step? Are we gonna wait until Joe Blow does something crazy, or are we gonna take care of him before it gets there?
BRANCACCIO: Officials at Patrick Air Force Base declined to comment on what became of those reports on Nall and the others. But in a statement, they confirmed that they "work closely with local and state law enforcement on a regular basis." As for the sheriff's office, they declined to be interviewed. But since this videotape became public, the sheriff has promised to put an end to this kind of surveillance.
1960's PROTESTERS: Hell, no! We won't go!
BRANCACCIO: Right about now, you may be hearing echoes...echoes of the 1960's, when the Feds aggressively spied on anti-war protestors and others perceived as political enemies. But William Arkin uses a very strong word when he describes what is going on today. All this gathering and connecting of dots is, he says, even more "diabolical."
In this day and age, Arkin says, anyone can become the "enemy."
ARKIN: You have to read this through a post-9/11 lens. And the post 9/11 lens is not that the enemy is the obvious political opponent, the obvious person. The post-9/11 lens is we don't know who the enemy is.
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