Pentagon steps up intelligence efforts inside U.S. borders: report

[struggle4progress]

The U.S. Defense Department has stepped up efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to gather intelligence within U.S. borders, aimed at both protecting military facilities and keeping an eye out for any threat on American soil, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. <snip>

Several parts of the Defense Department are building large databases of information from sources such as local police, military personnel and the Internet, and in doing so, the military is edging toward a sensitive area that has been off-limits to it since the 1970s: domestic surveillance and law enforcement, according to the report.

One widely reported part of the new information battle is the National Security Agency's wiretapping of calls without a warrant between people in the United States and suspected terrorists overseas. The NSA is part of the Defense Department.

The military justified the gathering of domestic intelligence in part by relying on a key distinction between "receiving" information and "collecting" it. Military regulations over the past few decades have generally barred using soldiers to gather information on American citizens, but military officials have interpreted the rules to mean that receiving information from the police or federal agents is acceptable, the report said. <snip>

http://english.people.com.cn/200604/28/eng20060428_261801.html

[Sinti]

1. They're watching you

They can't "collect," but I bet they can hire private companies to collect. Get too noisy, and get too much attention and they'll shut you down somehow -- I'm pretty sure that's what they intend. If nothing else it puts a hell of a chill on the idea of our basic liberties, speech, assembly and so on. I swear these guys would love to destroy the very thing they've sworn an oath to protect.

They hate us for our freedoms.