NEWS BACKGROUNDER – Thursday, March 9, 2006

Rumsfeld Finally Yields Some Answers
To Leahy’s Questions
On Pentagon’s Database Entries About Vermonters

NOTE:  The Leahy-Rumsfeld correspondence, including today’s new letter from the Defense Department, is all posted on the Leahy website, along with a transcript of today’s Leahy-Rumsfeld exchange on this at today’s Appropriations Committee hearing.

It took three pointed letters and the spotlight of a high-profile hearing on Capitol Hill, but after nearly three months Senator Patrick Leahy has finally gotten answers he’s been seeking about a Defense Department database and its entries about Vermont anti-war activists.

Leahy asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the issue Thursday at a hearing by the Senate Appropriations Committee – the panel that handles the Senate’s work in writing the Defense Department’s budget bills -- where Leahy is a senior member [TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE].  Shortly after the Leahy-Rumsfeld exchange at the hearing, a letter from the secretary’s office was delivered to Leahy, containing far more answers than did earlier responses [LETTER AVAILABLE].

Leahy began his inquiries after NBC News last December revealed that a Pentagon program, intended to alert defense officials to actual threats to military property and personnel, actually has logged entries about peaceful groups.  According to NBC, the organizations include Quakers in Florida.  The news account said entries in the system also included some from Vermont.

Leahy has written three letters to Secretary Rumsfeld asking about the program and about any entries involving Vermonters.  He has sent three letters in all, on December 21, January 27 and February 17 [AVAILABLE ONLINE].  Leahy says the earlier replies by Department of Defense (DOD) officials to his letters have been largely unresponsive to his detailed questions.  Leahy’s last letter gave the defense secretary a deadline of March 15. 

In the new letter, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Robert W. Rogalski tells Leahy that the Defense Department did not conduct any investigations of the domestic activities of Vermonters and did not target any groups in Vermont for the collection of intelligence.  Rogalski said DOD did receive two reports from the Department of Homeland Security about protests against DOD recruiters by Vermont groups, which prompted reports that were entered on the TALON Reporting System, created in 2003 to document, share and analyze unfiltered information about suspicious incidents related to possible foreign terrorist threats to DOD. 

The letter spells out several actions that have been taken since the NBC and Leahy inquiries to correct problems with the TALON program and its related “Cornerstone” database.  According to the letter, “a small number” of TALON reports, dealing with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting DOD facilities or personnel, were found that did not meet established criteria and that should not have been retained in the Cornerstone database.  The letter said they now have been removed.

The letter discloses that the Cornerstone database also contained 15 additional TALON reports relating to suspicious activity in Vermont that had been reported to DOD by concerned citizens, DOD personnel or civilian law enforcement agencies, and that three were later removed after determining no link to possible terrorist activity.

Defense officials, according to the letter, have now also completed a nationwide review of the TALON database and identified 186 protests and 43 named individuals in related reports that should not have been entered.  The letter said only one of them concerned an anti-war protests in Vermont in which a person was named.  All reports concerning demonstrations, protests or other anti-war related activities, including those that contained U.S. person names, have been purged.

Also in the wake of the NBC and Leahy inquiries, the TALON/Cornerstone rules have been clarified and new guidance given to personnel who deal with the program.

Reaction Comment from Senator Patrick Leahy:  “It should not have to take this much effort to get answers, but I’m glad to finally have them.  It is also encouraging to know that this episode has led to clarification of the rules and to new training in those rules.

“Somewhere between government’s legitimate security needs and the American people’s right to privacy is a proper balance when it comes to the sensitive issue of the use of databases and data-mining.  The rules that protect against abuse need to be clear, and the rules need to be followed.  Congressional oversight helps find and enforce the right balance, but oversight by the current Congress has been lacking to the point of negligence.  Vigilant oversight helps keep abuses from creeping back into the system, and I’ll continue to do my part.”

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