Homeland Security memo reveals terrorism records are being sanitized [View All]

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http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/7/232329/3516

Homeland Security memo reveals terrorism records are being sanitized
By Bill Conroy,
Posted on Thu Apr 7th, 2005 at 11:23:29 PM EST

A http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/ice_memo.pdf ">memo leaked to Narco News by some brave soul within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offers a revealing insight into the so-called war on terrorism. In short, the memo seems to show that for at least one federal law-enforcement agency, investigating terrorism is not unlike the childhood game of “Duck, Duck, Goose.” The memo, issued on March 28 by a high-ranking official with DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), essentially orders supervisors in the field to sanitize terrorism-related case files maintained in a major law-enforcement computer system called TECS. All told, TECS contains about 12,000 terrorism-related “records,” of which about 4,000 have been generated by ICE, according to the memo.

ICE supervisors, per the memo’s instructions, are to "modify or remove all ICE-generated TECS records designated as ‘terrorist.’” In other words, the memo instructs ICE supervisors to ensure that if they come across a goose in the game of find-the-terrorist, then they should call it a duck. As a result, based on the memo’s instructions, existing records originated by ICE and deemed to be terror-related are to be purged from the TECS computer system by reclassifying them to make them appear to be unrelated to terrorism. The deadline for completing this 4,000-record sanitizing task is April 11, two weeks from the issue date of the memo.

From the memo, which was issued by Marcy Forman, director of the office of investigations for http://www.ice.gov/graphics/index.htm">ICE:

... Modifications to each subject record should be made in the status and/or category field that contain “terrorist” to reflect the nature of the underlying investigation. For example, if a subject is suspected of being involved in terrorist financing, the category should be Financial (category FI). If they are suspected of smuggling terrorists, the category should be Human Smuggling/Trafficking (category HS), etc. ... All records must be modified by April 11, 2005.

Forman drafted the ICE memo in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-6, which authorized the creation of the Terrorism Screening Center (TSC), which is charged with developing and managing a centralized database for tracking terrorist threats. The TSC operates in coordination with the National Counterterrorism Center, which was created as a post-9/11 solution for eliminating duplication and confusion among the various federal agencies charged with protecting national security. However, the record-modification instructions in the ICE memo seem to exceed even the parameters of the presidential edict. There is no mention of “modifying” existing records in the directive. “The directive does not alter existing authorities or responsibilities of department and agency heads to carry out operational activities or provide or receive information,” the president’s directive states. Whitehouse spokeswomen Christie Parell did not return calls from Narco News seeking comment on the ICE memo.

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