Pentagon has been keeping tabs on groups

TheCigSmokingMan

TheCigSmokingMan

Rift Surfer
Dems want to see citizen-monitoring database
Pentagon has been keeping tabs on groups perceived as security threat
By Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 5:03 p.m. PT Nov 22, 2006

A year ago, an NBC News investigation revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon database that included information on antiwar protests and American peace activists.

Now, newly disclosed documents reveal new details on who was targeted and which other government agencies may have helped monitor Americans. At universities across the country, an antiwar group called Veterans for Peace has staged protests by setting up crosses for soldiers killed in Iraq. In New Mexico last year, the local paper described the event as a display of honor.

Pentagon documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provide new details on how even Quakers and churches came to be labeled "threats" worthy of the attention of the military.

Congress wants to know not just what data was collected, but why and how it was to be used.

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Are Titorites and TheCigMan on that list?

Based on all the weird stuff that happened to me between 2005-Summer of 2006...

Probably...

TheCigMan
 
I had the urge to say something about 'military intelligence,' but we don't know who will be reading this, do we?

So instead, please join me in singing the old standard, "It's a lovely day today....."
 
Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/washington/14spy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: January 14, 2007
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.

The military and the C.I.A. have long been restricted in their domestic intelligence operations, and both are barred from conducting traditional domestic law enforcement work. The C.I.A.’s role within the United States has been largely limited to recruiting people to spy on foreign countries.

Carl Kropf, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said intelligence agencies like the C.I.A. used the letters on only a “limited basis.”

Pentagon officials defended the letters as valuable tools and said they were part of a broader strategy since the Sept. 11 attacks to use more aggressive intelligence-gathering tactics — a priority of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The letters “provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism,” said Maj. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman.

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Is a military dictatorship under Bush far behind?

TheCigMan
 
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