From: "Rich Gauszka" 

permitted to 'receive' but not to 'collect'?


http://www1.cq.com/cq.com/www.cq.com/public/20060131_homeland.html

Official: Army Has Authority to Spy on Americans By Jeff Stein, CQ Staff
"Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute ban on [military]
intelligence components collecting U.S. person information," the
U.S.Army's top intelligence officer said in a 2001 memo that surfaced
Tuesday.

Not only that, military intelligence agencies are permitted to
"receive" domestic intelligence information, even though they
cannot legally "collect" it," according to the Nov. 5, 2001,
memo issued by Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., the deputy chief of staff for
intelligence.

"MI [military intelligence] may receive information from anyone,
anytime," Noonan wrote in the memo, obtained by Secrecy News, a
newsletter from the non-profit Federation of American Scientists in
Washington.

Defense Department and Army regulations "allow collection about U.S.
persons reasonably believed to be engaged, or about to engage, in
international terrorist activities," Noonan continued.

"Remember, merely receiving information does not constitute
'collection' under AR [Army Regulation] 381-10; collection entails
receiving 'for use,' " he added. (Army Regulation 381-10, "U.S.
Army Intelligence Activities," was reissued on Nov. 22, 2005, but had
not previously been disclosed publicly.) "Army intelligence may always
receive information, if only to determine its intelligence value and
whether it can be collected, retained, or disseminated in accordance with
governing policy,"

The distinction between "receiving" and "collecting"
seems "to offer considerable leeway for domestic surveillance
activities under the existing legal framework," wrote editor Steven
Aftergood in Tuesday's edition of Secrecy News.

"This in turn makes it harder to understand why the NSA domestic
surveillance program departed from previous practice."

Aftergood was alerted to the existence of the memo by another security
expert, John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, who thought that "there is
enough ambiguity in the language that with a bit of creativity in managing
the U.S. persons files there would have been not too much trouble"
applying existing rules to the warrantless eavesdropping by the National
Security Agency.

TALON Reports
The Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) was launched in
2002 with the mission of "gathering information and conducting
activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other
intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist
activities," according to a CIFA brochure. Its TALON program has
amassed files on antiwar protesters, according to a Pentagon official.

"More than 5,000 TALON reports" were "received and shared
throughout the government" in the program's first year of
operation," Carol A. Haave, deputy undersecretary of Defense for
counterintelligence and security, told the House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence in May 2004.

"At that rate, about 12,500 Talon reports would have been filed during
the approximately 2« years the program has existed," The Washington
Post concluded Tuesday.

. Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence: "Collecting
Information on U.S. Persons" (pdf)

. Edition of AR 381-10 dated July 1, 1984 (in effect until Dec. 22, 2005) (pdf)

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