JPEN: The military is using NSA intercepts to spy on Americans

[shraby]

A couple of days ago, I wrote a piece on American intelligence agencies, a brief run-down of all the different organizations and what role they played.

In the course of doing the research for that story, I came across a unit I'd never heard of before, the DIA's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CFA), and their program the Joint Protection Enterprise Network (JPEN).

When I went to the internet to do find more information about JPEN, I was surprised to see that Google had a total of only 293 hits, one of which was from my own blog. You know darn well that when Google doesn't return several thousand hits that you're dealing with something relatively unknown. Yet my investigation has discovered that JPEN is tied into the recent NSA wiretapping scandal

short, JPEN is a simple computer program that runs across an internet-like interface (via ordinary browsers) that is very simple to use. It was brought online by the Pentagon shortly after 9/11/01 in a very rapid manner because it used commercial software that was only slightly modified.

You can read the full description of what JPEN does here. When you strip out the military jargon, JPEN is essentially a database of gossip used by Department of Defense employees, especially those who staff the entrances to military bases and facilities.

(much more/unsettling stuff)

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/6/5525/38581>

[MichiganVote]

1. Wow. Just wow.

[teryang]

2. "We can do whatever the f..., we want."

This I have from a source inside the government. The creation of lists is what totalitarian rule is all about.

[peacetalksforall]

3. It's like our eary history of wild posse's and independent sheriffs..

Who needs Poindexter? All of Rummy's boys in uniform can express their bigoty, fears, and testasterone. Boy players with permissions of the Sec of DOD can write anything they want. Imagine.

[Acryliccalico]

4. Giving me Nightmares.......n/t