More Antiwar Protests in Military Database
The Talon database started as a way for the Defense Department to collect tips on possible threats to military facilities. But as the program grew, those tips of so-called "suspicious incidents" became themselves more and more suspect.
One “incident†included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.â€
New documents, obtained by the ACLU, catalog more, previously-undisclosed monitoring of free speech, in the name of force protection. A Veterans for Peace march in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is tagged a "threat to military facilities." A "church service for peace" in New York is labeled "potential terrorist activity."
"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 New York Times reports.
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.â€
When the NSA's warantless wiretapping program was revealed, defenders of the effort told us not to worry. "Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks," the President said last December.
But it's the creeping expansion of a program like Talon, from counterintelligence to counter-dissidence, that gets folks like me so concerned about domestic spying without legal review. Sure, the programs start out with the best of intentions. But it becomes way too easy for a bureaucracy to slide into something that's just plain wrong.
Good Morning Sam,
Sorry but the "Times" printed, a widely reprinted story, yesterday morning, the story about "Marine Snipers". Good story for the Marines but for anybody wanting to know what is happening inthe al Anbar it is at the very least desceptive if not intentionally misleading to the readrer.
Left out of the article is the reason why Marine Snipers have been under productive, the piece used business terms to describe what the sniper does, they gave credit to a few kids and Shepards giving away the snipers positions. Nothing was said about how almost all intelligence in al Anbar has been comprimised, yeah kids. The Euphrades is a Terrorists Interstate and the U.S. is powerless to stop 'em.
The article neglects to mention the report by marine Col. Peter Devlin on the hopeless sisuation the Marines are dealing with in al Anbar.
The article fails to mention that the six sniper team killed by the insurgents were part of the 3/23 Marines, a Reserve Batallion that was shamelessly (over) used instead of better trained Regular Marine Batillions by the chain of command as the go to unit in the al Anbar.
Why Sam have Americans like General Tommy Franks and Henry Kissinger, among other felt compelled to do interviews with thr foreugn press instead of "The New York Times" when they were in disagreement with the Bush White House?
Only a couple of weeks ago CENTOM threatened to cut off CNN's imbeds if they didn't report the news the way CENTCOM wanted it. CNN changed there way, quickly.
Sorry Sam but the Times as well as the rest of the American media has "knuckled under" to the Joseph Goebbels control of the Bush White House, someone in the west wing says oh sh** and everybody at the Times starts looking for the tiolet paper, your holding it in your hand, it's called The New York Times.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Posted by: Byron Skinner at November 22, 2006 2:38 PM