If You Oppose The War, The Pentagon May Already Have Your Number
U.S. military has a secret database of anti-war activity, according to a report.
by Gil Kaufman

If you've marched against the Iraq war or flashed a peace sign during a rally, the Pentagon may be keeping an eye on you. The U.S. military has been building a secret database that suggests it is monitoring peace demonstrations and collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war.

The revelation was included in an "NBC Nightly News" report on Tuesday, which stated that a database obtained by the network included a list of 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the U.S. over a 10-month period that included four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting.

The report referred to what it called a secret briefing document, which concluded: "We have noted increased communication between protest groups using the Internet," but not a "significant connection" between incidents. The documents were described as a peek at how the Pentagon has increased the pace of intelligence collection in the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the NBC report, saying "The Department of Defense uses counterintelligence and law enforcement information properly collected by law enforcement agencies. ... The use of this information is subject to strict limitations, particularly the information must be related to missions relating to protection of DoD installations, interests and personnel."

The Pentagon had previously acknowledged the existence of a domestic counterintelligence program known as the Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) reporting system. That system is designed to gather "non-validated threat information and security anomalies indicative of possible terrorist pre-attack activity."

The collection of information on Iraq war protests is reminiscent of similar activity during the Vietnam War era, when it was discovered that the Pentagon spied on anti-war and civil-rights groups and individuals. As a result, Congress held hearings in the 1970s in which it recommended strict limits on military spying inside the U.S.


whygodeep

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they arrested the idiots in ANSWER and their ilk. Then maybe sane people against the war could have a protest without the moronic hand puppets and face paint, and the "omg, Bush is worse than Hitler!!!" rhetoric.

That's sad that you would support arresting the ANSWER people. I think they are misguided at times and i don't always agree with what they say, but no one should be arrested for using their free speech. Unless their speech puts people in immediate danger (ie. yelling fire in a theater) they should be allowed to carry on without the fear of being spied on and persecueted for their different world view.

I was being sarcastic with the whole "arrest them" thing. Although I think misguided is a little too gentle of a word to describe them.

Understood. I thought you might of been sarcastic but wasn't sure. I do hate when people compare bush to hitler. I am anti-bush to the core, but people who think he is hitler need a serious history lesson.

Housed in Poland? Romania? Probably the Good Ol' USA.

In the new hyper-sensitive, Patriot Act-era America we're now living in, I'm not really surprised that this is going on. If anything, I'm shocked that it's taken this long to surface in the media. I pretty much assume that everything I do, or ever will do, will rest in a government database somewhere from now on. Sad but true.

I wrote a lot of letters to Bush, Dole, and Burr ... I'm sure the White House will find me when they want to kill me.

del

Frankly, I was more comfortable when I just knew that they were gathering information about anyone for anything. But now that they come out and tell you that they're doing it, it's just like...whoa.

COINTELPRO! The American way since 1956!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_ ... h/bush_nsa

Is it scary that I'm starting to believe that a few Republicans in Congress actually have a little bit of integrity and aren't just rubber stamps for the President? In the last couple of weeks, I've been impressed with McCain, Specter, Hagel, Warner, and Graham (to a lesser degree).

Either that, or they don't want to go down with the ship.

Yes, we do appear to be quite hyper-sensitive.

In a related note, Santa Clause has a secret database detailing those people who have supported the war on Christmas, as well as a database of people who are fighting back. Reportedly, the former list is labeled "Naughty," and the latter "Nice."

Shouldn't surprise you. They're more conservative than they are Republican.

I have a hard time defending this... Ugh.

I'm surprised because it's been a long time since we've seen the Legislative and Executive branches operating independently of each other. Not many checks and balances lately.

By the same token, I'm also impressed with Lieberman for disagreeing with his party. I don't necessarily agree with him, but it's refreshing to see individuals breaking from party ranks on occasion.

BTW, I hope you don't feel the need to defend everything this administration does. As with the aforementioned Senators, it should be acceptable, if not encouraged, to call the President's bullshit once in a while. As Russ Feingold said, "He's President George Bush, not King George Bush".

Some highligts from today's Meet the Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10479765/








Apparently, Condoleezza Rice is not a lawyer. Because of this, she's not able to tell us which authorities of the Constitution and/or statues enabled the President to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for legally required eavesdropping warrants. I guess the Secretary of State will find out from the lawyers with the rest of us.