[Previous entry: "World's poorest pay for WTO compromise: Africa"] [Next entry: "In pictures: Bolivians elect leader"]

12/20/2005:

"Terror agency operates in U.S.: Pentagon unit collects intelligence"

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's newest counterterrorism agency, charged with protecting military facilities and personnel wherever they are, is carrying out intelligence collection, analysis and operations within the United States and abroad, according to a Pentagon fact sheet on the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, provided to The Washington Post.

CIFA is a three-year-old agency whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies, to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.

Its Directorate of Field Activities (DX) "assists in preserving the most critical defense assets, disrupting adversaries and helping control the intelligence domain," the fact sheet said. Those roles can range from running roving patrols around military bases and facilities to surveillance of potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States. The DX also provides "on-site, real time ... support in hostile areas worldwide to protect both U.S. and host nation personnel from a variety of threats," the fact sheet said.

This is just one illustration of the quiet growth of Pentagon activities inside the United States and abroad as part of the war on terror. Last week, news accounts revealed that President Bush authorized secret eavesdropping on Americans with suspected ties to terrorist groups.

Another CIFA directorate, the Counterintelligence and Law Enforcement Center "identifies and assesses threats" to Defense personnel, operations and infrastructure from "insider threats, foreign intelligence services, terrorists, and other clandestine or covert entities," according to the Pentagon.
post-gazette.com