Wednesday afternoon on September 26, 2001, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, responding to a question regarding recent controversial comments by talk show host Bill Maher, uttered the now infamous words: "Americans need to watch what they say." One month later, the controversial U.S. Patriot Act was signed into law and a new era in the age-old debate over privacy rights began.
Seven years later, the FBI announced another major breakthrough in crime and terrorist fighting tools. It's called the eGuardian system, and it will, according to the FBI, "enable near real-time sharing and tracking of terror information and suspicious activities with our local state, tribal, and federal partners."
The system is an improvement of an earlier tool known simply as "Guardian." But unlike its predecessor, eGuardian will be accessible through the FBI's secure Internet server to over 18,000 law enforcement agencies, making the information contained within completely unclassified.
eGuardian is defined by a four step process: First, a local police department will receive and catalog into eGuardian a report of suspicious activity. This preliminary report will then go to the state's "primary fusion center" where it will be reviewed for possible terror connections. If the terror connection is found, the final report will be uploaded onto eGuardian where it can be viewed by anyone with access to the system database. Finally the report will be entered onto the original Guardian database and assigned to a Joint Terrorism Task Force
The FBI is not the only federal entity adopting the system. In August, the Department of Defense announced that they would be replacing its controversial Talon database with eGuardian as well. According to a Reuters report, Talon was shutdown amidst concerns of domestic spying. The same report noted that this changeover would mark the first time that DoD's database would be taken out of the hands of the intelligence operations and placed on an unclassified database. Another reason for the switch stemmed from the fact that Talon was sharply criticized after it was found to have retained information on antiwar protestors even though they had no ties to terrorists.
This is an issue that may or may not carry over to the new system; the FBI does not address it in their initial press release regarding the program. Pentagon counterintelligence official Toby Sullivan was quoted as saying "The concept [of Talon] is still good...it just shouldn't be in a counterintelligence database."
With the second major federal entity adopting eGuardian, it is safe to say that the implementation of the program has evolved into a full-blown trend in the world of intelligence gathering. But one important question remains; what does this mean for the average American?
On the one hand, the government transparency and open communication lines that so many taxpayers demanded in the wake of the passing of the Patriot Act seems to finally be imminent. But on the other hand, the nagging question of "what constitutes suspicious behavior?" remains. Sure, the FBI and DoD most likely have their own definitions, but they haven't been acknowledged to the people who are funding this project and could quite possibly have their names smeared by it.
In short: open communication is generally thought of as a good thing, but a twenty-first century version of the Black List is somewhat less of an attractive thought. Of course, when dealing with a project in its infancy, such as this one, we are forced to play devil's advocate. Only time will tell if eGuardian proves to be a government wonder, or a government blunder. One thing is for sure, however; it certainly isn't business as usual.
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