[Winstonm]

In the name of stopping terrorism, this is what our Defense Department has been doing:

Quote

At least 186 antiwar protests in the United States have been monitored by the Pentagon's domestic surveillance program, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which also found that the Defense Department collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in a single anti-terrorism database.

(Comment: Them thar American anit-Americans is the worst kind of anti-Americans there is, and they hold these there "peace" rallys as a front for....can you believe it.....peace.  Hell, man, if I wanted peace I'd pack up and move to Switzerland.)
The documents were obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request filed last February.

Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement. "This unchecked surveillance is part of a broad pattern of the Bush administration using 'national security' as an excuse to run roughshod over the privacy and free speech rights of Americans."

The internal Defense Department documents show it is monitoring the activities of a wide swath of peace groups, including Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink, the American Friends Service Committee, the War Resisters League, and the umbrella group United for Peace and Justice, which is spearheading what organizers hope will be a massive march on Washington this Saturday.

(Comment: Them thar Veterans for Peace is the wurst - why, just the other day one of em almost backed his Honda right into my Winebago - damn, made me spill half a beer.)
Veterans for Peace erected an antiwar display the week of 18 April 2005 at a local university," reads a report on a New Orleans protest from the Pentagon's Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) database. "A local army recruiter mistook the event as a memorial to fallen service members and arrived to view the display."

According to the TALON report, six individuals, who the report acknowledges may not have been associated with the Veterans for Peace group, shouted "war monger" and "baby killer" at the recruiter and a shoving match ensued.

"Veterans for Peace claim to be nonviolent," the report concludes. "This incident demonstrates a propensity for violence, and the Veterans for Peace should be viewed as a possible threat to Army and DoD (Defense Department) personnel."

(Comment: Hell, next thing ya know they'll be yelling stop the war and havin sitdown strikes - you can get yourself a mighty fine hernia trying to lift one of them boys up.)
The ACLU notes the Defense Department documents reveal that other government agencies were also involved in the spying.

In one report, a Department of Homeland Security agent warned after a peaceful protest by the War Resisters League at a military recruiting station that the group may favor "civil disobedience and vandalism." The report indicates that the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Atlanta and New York were briefed on planned protests.

(Comment: Hell, I get a little civlil disobedienced every Saturday night - especially if the Dogs win.  How about them dogs?)


"Congress should not let this president off the hook for inappropriate surveillance by the Pentagon," the group's Caroline Fredrickson said. "Americans must once again be confident we can exercise our constitutionally protected right to protest without becoming the subject of a secret government file."

I thought Nixon was the zenith - but this administration is Nixon on steroids.
When will enough finally be enough?

[jtfanclub]

Quote

The documents were obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request filed last February.

I think that's the definition of checked. How secret can this be, if you can send the government a nice note and they'll tell you all about it?

Oh, and Nixon was nowhere near as bad as the other post-WWII Presidents when it comes to spying on activities- ask the NAACP and the Black Panthers, to name two. Most of that spying was pre-Nixon. Nixon was just in trouble for doing to the Democratic Party what had been done to smaller parties for decades.

[Al_U_Card]

What is at issue here is the constant and BLATANT lying and denials. Just watching them (à la Rumsfeld and the WMD locations etc.) is enough to make you sick. How can the common people support liars like that?

[Winstonm]

jtfanclub, on Jan 28 2007, 04:38 AM, said:

Quote

The documents were obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request filed last February.

I think that's the definition of checked. How secret can this be, if you can send the government a nice note and they'll tell you all about it?

Oh, and Nixon was nowhere near as bad as the other post-WWII Presidents when it comes to spying on activities- ask the NAACP and the Black Panthers, to name two. Most of that spying was pre-Nixon. Nixon was just in trouble for doing to the Democratic Party what had been done to smaller parties for decades.

The problem, in my view, is that the informtion was released "after the fact", and a Freedom of Information Act request does not have oversight powers, so IMHO it is not the same as"checked", as far as checks and balances in government.

The "check" in this indcident would be provided by Congress and/or the Judicial Branch making the use of military personal in domestic spying illegal - but then I thought Posse Comitatus would have prevented that anyway.

In my opinion, the trouble stems from the use of an exagerated "War on Terror" in order to expand the powers of the government to interfere with daily life, and to drastically increase the power of the executive branch.

Isn't it laughable to think a non-biased report will be received when a soldier is sent by a superior to get the "goods" on a demonstration? You can see the silliness of it by the extraordinary lengths of illogical leap that yelling out "baby killer" and "war monger" predisposes these people to violence and are therefore a danger to the DoD.

The problem again, IMO, comes down to a manufactured "War on Terror" to justify expansion of government - spying on peace rallys only confirms to me the lack of reality of the threat - if the threat were that real, no one would take the rallys seriously. But then, the Patriot Act created a new term, "domestic terrorist", and that allows anyone to be spied upon at the government's whim.

It is legal - the only "check" to domestic spying under the Partriot Act is the Supreme Court.

[Al_U_Card]

The US is at a very dangerous crossroads. Neither the first nor the last in their history. They have survived other "challenges" to the integrity of their nationhood, but now the country is "on-line" and apathetic......who knows where this will lead. The powers that be are consolidating their positions and showing their contempt for the people. When will enough be enough?

[Winstonm]

Al_U_Card, on Jan 28 2007, 11:26 AM, said:

What is at issue here is the constant and BLATANT lying and denials.  Just watching them (à la Rumsfeld and the WMD locations etc.) is enough to make you sick. How can the common people support liers like that?

I don't think the common people do support them - Bush approval ratings are now at 28% and sinking. Nearly 80% oppose the war in Iraq. I think it will take another "event" to rekindle the fear of terrorists striking the U.S. and reenergize the neocon agenda. This entire process of expanding governmental powers has been shielded under the claim of "War on Terror", which began with 9-11. There has never been a full, impartial investigation of what occured leading up to 9-11 and on that day. Isn't it rather ludicrous that we have allowed ourselves to go to war twice, surrendered the protections of the Bill of Rights via the Patriot Act, the Military Commission Act, and the John Warner Defense Act - all now laws - and all without having a clear understanding of what caused the attack, who made the attack, and what caused the buildings to collapse?


How big of event would 9-11 be if the buildings had not collapsed? Was the collapse necessary to magnify the horror? How much of a "National Abhorence" would we feel now if the fires would have gone out in a couple of days and the buildings remained? Would that have been enough to begin a "War on Terror"?

I know I am still subliminally affected by the towers collapse - when I see a Muslim my mind automatically flashes to those images. I do not think the reinforced images would be as strong if the towers had not collapsed. The "War on Terror" was dependent on the towers collapsing. (IMO) The extremely odd thing is that to this day, there has been no official explanation of the collapses - only an attempt to explain events that led up to the towers being on the verge "of global collapse".

I happen to have a suspicious mind - when things don't "feel" right, when there is an odd odor lingering over an event, there is usually a cause.

And here are the oddities that are troubling, especially if you accept the premise that collapses were necessary to the total collective feelings of horor:
1) Although built to withstand similar crashes, the towers did not survive these crashes.
2) Althout the towers were hit at different locations and on different floors, they both reacted the same way.
3) A third building collapsed in a different manner from the other two, and it was not hit by a plane.

But what if someone wanted the building to collapse? Mayor Gugliani had an emergency office in WTC-7, a virtual fortress - but he was not there that day.
That office would have been a perfect spot to supervise the remote demolition of the towers. Then 6 hours after the collapses, this office and all its evidence is destroyed and carted away when this buidling collapses, too.

So it makes me wonder - was it the planes crashing into the towers that galvanized a nation to war? Or was it the collapses?

If the collapses, what caused them to collapse? This is still unexplained.

[mike777]

Yet congress does nothing!

They spout off in public how the new plan is doomed to fail, giving support to the enemy, hurting the moral of our soldiers, yet they keep sending them to die and get wounded and do nothing but pass nonbinding bills.


I am all for disagreement of judgement on the war but do something about it, Congress! Do not just publicly tell our soldiers they and the mission are doomed to fail and then do nothing about it! Disgraceful!

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Jan 28 2007, 01:37 PM, said:

Yet congress does nothing!

They spout off in public how the new plan is doomed to fail, giving support to the enemy, hurting the moral of our soldiers, yet they keep sending them to die and get wounded and do nothing but pass nonbinding bills.


I am all for disagreement of judgement on the war but do something about it, Congress! Do not just publicly tell our soldiers they and the mission are doomed to fail and then do nothing about it!  Disgraceful!

Mike, I happen to agree with you. Surprise. You sound a lot like Senator Hagel, who early on has my support. Someone who has the guts to challenge the leadership of his own party stands out to me as someone to be reckoned with.

[Al_U_Card]

It is atrocious that W got to fly in the face of reason to continue his madness. Spineless and gutless is congress if they kowtow to this insanity.

If this whole thing runs its course and nothing "suspicious" occurs between now and the next elections....I will be the first to breathe a sigh of relief.....but meanwhile the flower of America'a youth continues to die....