According to the WAPO's Karen DeYoung, (by way of the NW Herald)
WASHINGTON - The Defense Department has used a long-standing authority to acquire the personal financial records of American citizens in military-related criminal and other investigations as part of an expansion of the Pentagon's gathering of counterterrorism intelligence at home, officials said Saturday.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that "There are certainly types of information and transactions that are valuable to the department when conducting counterintelligence and counterespionage investigations." He went on to emphasize that although the FBI can compel banks and other financial institutions to gain access to records, that the military can require that the records be turned over to them.
Jump with me, won't you?
The FBI can accomplish this by using 'National Security Letters', which have been discussed a lot in many circles, from politicians to bloggers to journalists.
Unlike the FBI, only four U.S. military entities are authorized to ask for them - the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Criminal Investigation Service of the Army and of the Navy, and the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center
All of these entities are overseen by CIFA.
I know that this has been discussed somewhat recently. Why am I bringing it up now?
Virgil Goode (R-MZM), who received illegal contributions from Mitchell Wade, the former owner and CEO of MZM. Check this out:
The agency was criticized in December 2005 after it was revealed that a database managed by CIFA, called TALON, contained unverified, raw threat information about people who were peacefully protesting the Iraq war at defense facilities, including recruiting offices. In August, CIFA Director David Burtt and his top deputy, Joseph Hefferon, resigned in the wake of a scandal involving CIFA contracts that went to MZM Inc., a company run by Mitchell Wade. Wade pleaded guilty last February to conspiring to bribe then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. R-Calif.
Is Virgil Goode under investigation? Would we even know? Virgil has very little staff, so I wonder if a subpeona was served on him or his office, would we know? Katherine Harris, another beneficiary of Wade's largesse, went through staffers like socks last summer and fall, partly due to having received a subpeona to talk with the FBI about the Cunningham/Wade cases.
It is beyond my rational thinking to understand why Virgil has not at least been questioned about these items. There is so much connected to Wade/Cunningham/Harris/Goode/Wilkes, it would be amazing to me to think that the congressman would not somehow be under investigation.
There have been rumors for the last few years about CIFA and its employees. I won't say more than that.
A blast from the recent past from the ex-Defense Secretary:
Under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon expanded its collection of intelligence within the borders of the United States - a development that stirred concern among members of Congress and prompted stern criticism and lawsuits from civil liberties advocates.The Pentagon agency that oversees these efforts is the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was established in September 2002 by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
CIFA is charged with coordinating policy and overseeing the domestic counterintelligence activities of Pentagon agencies and the armed forces. The agency's size and budget are classified, but congressional sources have said that the agency spent more than $1 billion through October. One counterintelligence official recently estimated that CIFA has 400 full-time employees and 800 to 900 contractors working for it.
In written responses to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing last month, Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, pledged to look "in greater detail" at CIFA's activities.
I would love to see anyone involved with all this be tried and convicted, like the 'Dukestir' was. If Virgil is indicted, that will be one huge obstacle removed from making that seat Democratic.
I added emphasis to the snips above.