WP's Walter Pincus: "standards" coming re. domestic intel

[DeepModem Mom]

Corralling Domestic Intelligence
Standards in the Works for Reports of Suspicious Activity
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 13, 2006; Page A05


The Bush administration is trying to set standards for how government agencies collect and maintain reports of suspicious activity because of concern that the agencies may be keeping inappropriate information on Americans while working to thwart terrorism with more extensive domestic intelligence, according to officials.

A number of departments have set up systems to encourage employees and others to file suspicious-activity reports, or SARs, to protect their facilities and personnel from attack. The National Counterterrorism Center, which by law has primary responsibility for analyzing terrorism-related intelligence, is trying to bring some order to that system, officials said.

Currently, the reporting varies in type and specific purpose from agency to agency, and information is collected in one form or another in data systems by the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, and the departments of State, the Treasury and Homeland Security.

How that information is handled and shared among intelligence agencies has become a matter of heightened concern after recent revelations that a Pentagon agency inappropriately kept reports in a database about people and groups that had protested the war in Iraq. Yesterday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to express concern and ask him for answers about the Counterintelligence Field Activity agency, or CIFA.

Officials hope that imposing common procedures for collecting and keeping information will reduce the chances for abuse....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201852.html