(Updated: Originally published November 22, 2006)
The part that gets me is that every time the government or military deny that they do or have done crap like this, it comes out they do and have.
I always write on the premise that some government monitor is reading it.
Maybe, maybe not, but in either case, it's on the record (Hello, government monitor.
Thanks for taking a look!
"Military Documents Hold Tips on Antiwar Activities" by ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks against military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations, newly disclosed documents show.
One tip in the database in February 2005, for instance, noted that “a church service for peace” would be held in the New York City area the next month. Another entry noted that antiwar protesters would be holding “nonviolence training” sessions at unidentified churches in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Oh, so we are "terrorists" now, huh?
Yeah, peace is a treasonable offense when your chief executive is a war-mongering war criminal!
The Defense Department tightened its procedures earlier this year to ensure that only material related to actual terrorist threats — and not peaceable First Amendment activity — was included in the database.
The head of the office that runs the military database, which is known as Talon, said Monday that material on antiwar protests should not have been collected in the first place.
“I don’t want it, we shouldn’t have had it, not interested in it,” said Daniel J. Baur, the acting director of the counterintelligence field activity unit, which runs the Talon program at the Defense Department. “I don’t want to deal with it.”
It's always, "Yup, blah, blah, blah," and yet info STILL ENDS UP IN FILES TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME!
Bauer doesn't want to deal with it.
Well, yeah, NOW that the report is in the paper; however, I'm sure this activity will continue.
Most are ignorant about secret spying, and many more totally apathetic!
Mr. Baur said that those operating the database had misinterpreted their mandate and that what was intended as an antiterrorist database became, in some respects, a catch-all for leads on possible disruptions and threats against military installations in the United States, including protests against the military presence in Iraq.
“I don’t think the policy was as clear as it could have been,” he said. Once the problem was discovered, he said, “we fixed it,” and more than 180 entries in the database related to war protests were deleted from the system last year. Out of 13,000 entries in the database, many of them uncorroborated leads on possible terrorist threats, several thousand others were also purged because he said they had “no continuing relevance.”
Amid public controversy over the database, leads from so-called neighborhood watch programs and other tips about possible threats are down significantly this year, Mr. Baur said. While the system had been tightened, he said he was concerned that the public scrutiny had created “a huge chilling effect” that could lead the military to miss legitimate terrorist threats.
Aw, tips are down! Thank God!
The last thing I want is a totalitarian society with watchers watching watchers!
Look at the fascist lament the "chilling effect" of "public scrutiny" of their unconstitutional acts!!!
As for "legitimate terrorist threats," he can start by finding out how "Al-CIA-Duh" dropped three WTC buildings into their own footprints through controlled demolitions, and then convinced the NYC mayor and former prosecutor Giuliani to allow the REMOVAL and DESTRUCTION of a CRIME SCENE!
Mr. Baur was responding to the latest batch of documents produced by the military under a Freedom of Information Act request brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. The A.C.L.U. planned to release the documents publicly on Tuesday, and officials with the group said they would push for Democrats, newly empowered in Congress, to hold formal hearings about the Talon database.
Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U. in New York, said the new documents suggested that the military’s efforts to glean intelligence on protesters went beyond what was previously known. If intelligence officials “are going to be doing investigations or monitoring in a place where people gather to worship or to study, they should have a pretty clear indication that a crime has occurred,” Mr. Wizner added.
Yes, and this only the "latest batch," huh?
The leader of one antiwar group mentioned repeatedly in the latest military documents provided to the A.C.L.U. said he was skeptical that the military had ended its collection of material on war protests.
“I don’t believe it,” said the leader, Michael T. McPhearson, a former Army captain who is the executive director of Veterans for Peace, a group in St. Louis.
Mr. McPhearson said he found the references to his group in the Talon database disappointing but not altogether surprising, and he said the group continued to use public settings and the Internet to plan its protests.
“We don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “We’re not doing anything illegal.”
Far from it, Captain!
You are exercising your CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS and I APPLAUD YOU for it!
I'm taking all the Freedom of Speech I can get right now.
As long as we have it, I'm using it!
I'll let you know one thing right off: I LUUUUVVVV OUR CONSTITUTION!!!!
Please stop abusing it, discarding it, trampling on it and shredding it!
Please stop that, and make us the nation we should be, are supposed to be, that we WANT to be!!!
The latest Talon documents showed that the military used a variety of sources to collect intelligence leads on antiwar protests, including an agent in the Department of Homeland Security, Google searches on the Internet and e-mail messages forwarded by apparent informants with ties to protest groups.
In most cases, entries in the Talon database acknowledged that there was no specific evidence indicating the possibility of terrorism or disruptions at the antiwar events, but they warned of the potential for violence.
One entry on Mr. McPhearson’s group from April 2005, for instance, described a protest at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces at which members handed out antimilitary literature and set up hundreds of white crosses to symbolize soldiers killed in Iraq.
“Veterans for Peace is a peaceful organization,” the entry said, but added there was potential that future protests “could become violent.”
Yup, SEARCHING ALL OVER the web!
But I'm a self-appointed paranoid, right?
Even if you are nonviolent, you "could become violent."
Especially if the same people spying on you send in a couple of agent provocateurs to discredit the movement!
So, SIG HEIL, you fascista pukes!
You guys and your FALSE TERROR CRAP!
I am sick of it, and sick of you!
I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!!!!
If I'm ever shut down or locked up, you will simply be proving my point and our Dear Leader will go down in history as the worst tyrant ever!
He's on the trajectory now.
Dreadfully, more than ONE MILLION Iraqis and Afghanis are dead after what this man has initiated abroad!
Sig Heil!
