Police State is upon us?

The Pentagon will end its Threat and Local Observation Notices (TALON)
Program. The program collects reports of activities that are alleged to
be threats to the Defense Department. The program will be shut down as
of September 17, 2007....

The department admitted that it had maintained the information
after it was determined that there was no threat from the protests past
the 90 days its guidelines provided for. The department also monitored
student speech and e-mails at several universities across the country,
tracking students involved in protesting military policies.

Anti-war groups and other organizations, including a Quaker group — the American Friends Service Committee — protested after it was revealed that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies.

Pentagon officials have said the program was productive and had detected international terrorist interests in specific military bases. But they also acknowledged that some officials may not have been using the system properly.

The TALON reports — collected by an array of Defense Department agencies including law enforcement, intelligence, counterintelligence and security — are kept in a large database and analyzed by an obscure Pentagon agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity. CIFA is a three-year-old outfit whose size and budget are secret.