Gate dismantling more DOD Rumsfeld disasters

August 04, 2008
See ya, CIFA

With every day that goes by, it seems, another piece of the edifice that Don Rumsfeld erected at the Pentagon is dismantled.

Today comes the news, not unexpected, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has shuttered--the official euphemism is "disestablished"--the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.

CIFA was widely criticized for gathering data on anti-war protesters, allegedly because they represented a threat to military bases and facilities, under a program known as Talon. The agency was the brainchild of Rumsfeld aides Stephen Cambone and Paul Wolfowitz. (Our colleague Walter Pincus of the Washington Post did a lot of the groundbreaking reporting on this issue).

The Talon database, itself shut down last year, had about 13,000 entries, including nearly 3,000 reports on U.S. citizens.

CIFA's resources and responsibilities are being transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency , under a new unit called the Defense Counterintelligence (CI) and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Center.

As always with these bureaucratic changes, the question is: what has really changed? Or, more specifically, will the Defense Department continue to have an expanded role in domestic intelligence-gathering and surveillance?

No clear answer on that question. Today's Pentagon press release did note: "CIFA's designation as a law enforcement activity did not transfer to DIA. The new center will have no law enforcement function."