Pentagon to Suspend Anti-Terror Database

[Terri]

By ROBERT BURNS
Associated Press
August 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon said Tuesday that it will shut down an anti-terror database that has been criticized for improperly storing information on peace activists and others whose actions posed no threat.

It will be closed on Sept. 17 and information collected subsequently on potential terror or security threats to Defense Department facilities or personnel will be sent by Pentagon officials to an FBI database known as Guardian, according to Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.

Keck said the Pentagon database is being shut down because ''the analytical value had declined,'' but not because of public criticism of how it was used. Eventually the Pentagon hopes to create a new system -- not necessarily a database -- to ''streamline such threat reporting,'' according to a brief statement issued Tuesday.

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