Pentagon Expanding Domestic Surveillance

[Balta1701]

Back in the 1970's, when the FBI and the Pentagon were allowed to look into the activites of any and all Americans...the government got completely out of control with this power. It's how we got things like FBI files on John Lennon, Government Agents traveling to Bloomington Indiana to organize anti-war protests just to get the names of those who would show up, etc.

 

The government just keeps claiming more and more power in the war on terror without any real checks or balances. And I don't trust the Executive branch enough to let them just keep choosing to expand their own power. I wouldn't trust a Democratic Executive Branch to make its own rules, and I don't trust a Republican one to do so either. WaPo link.

 

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

 

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

 

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction...

 

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.

 

Wyden has since persuaded lawmakers to change the legislation, attached to the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, to address some of his concerns, but he still believes hearings should be held. Among the changes was the elimination of a provision to let Defense Intelligence Agency officers hide the fact that they work for the government when they approach people who are possible sources of intelligence in the United States...

 

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.

 

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."

[Texsox]

As they said in the USSR, you have nothing to fear from the KGB if you are a law abiding citizen. So you have nothing to fear about our government.

[FlaSoxxJim]

As they said in the USSR, you have nothing to fear from the KGB if you are a law abiding citizen. So you have nothing to fear about our government.

 

Sadly, tragically so, I'd say 3/4 of the US population believes this statement without any sarcasm whatsoever.