Yet another instance of domestic spying on peace activists

[garybeck]

this is not "new" but it's a local story for me and it's the first I heard of it. I could easily have been me....


Vermont Peace Groups Targeted in Pentagon Surveillance

Vermont peace activists were the target of surveillance carried out in March 2005 under a secret Pentagon domestic spy program.

The Department of Defense surveillance is different from surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) reported earlier, or by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

MSNBC news broke the story in mid-December that the Pentagon had compiled a database of nearly 1,500 incidents that it said may have represented threats to the military. MSNBC had obtained, and published, a portion of the database.

Two Vermont incidents were on this partial list. Investigation by the ACLU-Vermont determined that the events had been anti-recruitment protests staged at military recruiters’ offices in Barre and Williston.

The peace groups involved were the American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker faith-based group) and Veterans for Peace (a group of former soldiers working for peace).
The ACLU-Vermont contacted Sen. Patrick Leahy, who on Dec. 21 wrote Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for an explanation of the surveillance. News stories on the Vermont spying broke the same day.

article on Vermont ACLU site:
http://www.acluvt.org/news/display.php?sid=1135374745&PHPSESSID=8172affd5764012521a0a3803ca0a6fa

[EFerrari]

1. Who else are they spying on but their opponents?

Be safe, garybeck.

[garybeck]

2. no one. they are more afraid of us "dissidents" than the "terrorists"

that's all they care about. they let Osama get away when they had the chance. it's obvious. this whole domestic spying thing has nothing to do with intercepting calls from al-queda. it's all about the peace activists, the environmentalists, the dissidents.

[EFerrari]

3. Exactly. That's what I meant. These progs only

target political opponents. And we're funding the war on ourselves.

[garybeck]

4. yup, and

if they didn't have the voting machines, they'd be long gone already. the most depressing thing of it all is that there's no simple way out of this mess. we can't just vote them out of office.

:puke:

[EFerrari]

5. Right will out. It really will. It's not simple but it does happen.

We have a long history of wonderful civil rights leaders to remember that have been here before us.

Think of them.

We'll be okay, garybeck. :)

[garybeck]

9. yup, i'm just saying this is the "long haul".

eventually truth will prevail. but it might take a while.

[liveoaktx]

6. VIDEO of Leahy asking Rumsfeld about this last week

brought up Talon, too

[harpo]

7. :)

[garybeck]

8. wow, thanks for that.

very much.