Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
warrantless wiretapping of American citizens violated the Fourth Amendment to the US
Constitution [28].
TALON DATABASE
The US Department of Defense created the Threat and Local Observation Notices
(TALON) database in 2003. The purpose of the database was to collect reports of suspi-
cious activities or terrorist threats near military bases. These reports were submitted by
military personnel or civilians and then assessed by Department of Defense experts as
either “credible” or “not credible.”
In December 2005,
NBC News
reported that the database contained reports on
antiwar protests occurring far from military bases [29]. In July 2006, the Servicemem-
bers Legal Defense Network reported that the TALON database contained emails from
students at Southern Connecticut State University, the State University of New York at
Albany, the University of California at Berkeley, and William Paterson University of New
Jersey who were planning protests against on-campus military recruiting [30].
The Department of Defense removed many of these reports from TALON after
conducting an in-house review that concluded the database should only contain infor-
mation related to terrorist activity. The American Civil Liberties Union asked Congress
to take steps “to ensure that Americans may once again exercise their First Amendment
rights without fear that they will be tracked in a government database of suspicious
activities” [31]. In April 2007, the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence rec-
ommended that the TALON program be terminated [32]. The TALON database was
shut down on September 17, 2007 [33].
As we have seen, the Federal Communications Act of 1934 made wiretapping illegal,
and by 1967 the US Supreme Court had closed the door to wiretapping and bugging
performed without a warrant (court order). After the Katz decision, police were left
without any electronic surveillance tools in their fight against crime.
Meanwhile, the United States was in the middle of the Vietnam War. In 1968 the
country was rocked by violent antiwar demonstrations and the assassinations of Martin
Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Law enforcement agencies pressured Congress to
allow wiretapping under some circumstances.
Congress responded by passing Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets
Act of 1968. Title III allows a police agency that has obtained a court order to tap a phone
for up to 30 days [19].
The government continued to argue that in cases of national security, agencies
should be able to tap phones without a warrant. In 1972 the Supreme Court rejected this
