"Emergency Preparedness" or Martial Law?
Vigilant Shield 09: A Cover for Illegal Domestic Operations?
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, November 23, 2008
author`s website: Antifascist Calling...
On November 17, U.S. Northern Command (
NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (
NORAD) concluded Vigilant Shield 09 (VS09), described in a
press release as a training exercise focused on "homeland defense and civil support."
Launched by President Bush in 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NORTHCOM has been mired in controversy since its creation. Among its more dubious accomplishments were illegal domestic spying operations in conjunction with the Pentagon's shadowy Counter Intelligence Field Activity unit (CIFA) that targeted antiwar activists.
Despite CIFA's
shut-down and the alleged dismantling of its
TALON database (now incorporated into the FBI's Guardian Threat Tracking System),
SourceWatch revealed that "in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements, the DoD will maintain a record copy of the collected data." One can't help but wonder whether that "record copy" of TALON somehow migrated into a NORTHCOM database.
But the NORTHCOM-CIFA liaison wasn't the only episode of illegal military spying on Americans to come to light. In May, the
San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Marines, including a Colonel and the co-founder of the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Center, stole top secret intelligence files from Camp Pendleton's Strategic Technical Operations Center.
Among the documents filched by the intellig
