"The Defence Department said it had "disestablished" the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, or CIFA, created in February 2002 by former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to manage defence and armed service efforts against intelligence threats from foreign powers and groups such as al Qaeda.

"Those responsibilities will now be carried out by a new organisation called the Defence Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Centre, overseen by the Pentagon'sDefence Intelligence Agency.

"CIFA's operations stirred concern among members of Congress and civil liberties advocates.

"A CIFA database known as Talon, set up to monitor threats against US military installations, was found to have retained information on US anti-war protesters including Quakers after they had been found to pose no security danger, officials said.

"Talon, the acronym for Threat and Local Observation Notice, was ended last year as a result of the outcry."

So, spying by the Pentagon on Americans exercising their consitutional rights will continue.  What's wrong with that picture?

As McClatchy blog Nukes & Spooks comments: "CIFA's resources and responsibilities are being transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency , under a new unit called the Defense Counterintelligence (CI) and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Center.

"As always with these bureaucratic changes, the question is: what has really changed?  Or, more specifically, will the Defense Department continue to have an expanded role in domestic intelligence-gathering and surveillance?

"No clear answer on that question....."The US has become a miltary police state that the civilian government has allowed to spy on citizens of this country.  How low can our elected officials go permitting this travesty and these illegalities to continue?

And then there is the militarist, J. Sid McSame, pushing for a military surveillance and policing state as reported by ThinkProgress:

"Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spoke to the National Urban League, a group "devoted to empowering African Americans http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/mccain-suggests-military-style-invasion-modeled-on-the-surge-to-control-inner-city-crime/ to enter the economic and social mainstream." When an audience member asked him how he planned to reduce urban crime, McCain praised Mayor Rudy Giuliani's efforts in New York Cirty before invoking the military's tactics in Iraq as the model for crime-fighting:

MCCAIN: And some of those tactics ”you mention the war in Iraq” are like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement, etc, etc.

"Now that our military experts advocate approaching the "war on terror" with more policing and intelligence gathering, McCain wants to approach urban policing with more military power. (HT: Political Radar)"

Under Sid McSame, an Orwellian military police state will be a definite reality in the US during a third Bush term and the Constitution will be shredded.