ACLU Report Shows Widespread Pentagon Surveillance of Peace Activists (1/17/2007)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Pentagon Tracked at Least 186 Anti-Military Protests
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report
revealing that the Pentagon monitored at least 186 anti-military protests in the
United States and collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an
anti-terrorist threat database.
“It cannot be an accident or coincidence that nearly 200 anti-war protests
ended up in a Pentagon threat database,” said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal
Director of the ACLU. “This unchecked surveillance is part of a broad pattern of
the Bush administration using ‘national security’ as an excuse to run roughshod
over the privacy and free speech rights of Americans.”
The ACLU report reviews hundreds of pages of Defense Department documents
obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed last year. The
documents revealed that the surveillance of peace groups and anti-war activists
was more widespread than previously known.
The latest document obtained by the ACLU, and released today, is an undated
2006 memo reviewing the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice
(TALON) database, which was found to list several peaceful protesters as
potential threats to the military. According to the memo, as of February 10,
2006, the Defense Department had deleted 186 TALON reports that involved
“anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.” In addition, the Defense
Department identified 2,821 TALON reports remaining in the database that contain
what the Department describes as “U.S. person information,” but it is unclear
whether those reports pertain to protest activities.
The memo also states that “personnel from 28 organizations were authorized to
use TALON” and 3,589 users have been authorized to submit TALON reports or
access the database. Because of such wide access to the database, even deleted
reports may still appear in the files of other government agencies, the ACLU
said.
The ACLU said the Pentagon’s misuse of the TALON database is just one example
of increased government surveillance of innocent Americans. With the help of
phone companies, the National Security Agency has been conducting warrantless
wiretapping of U.S. phones and reading the e-mails of countless Americans, all
without a warrant. The FBI has gathered information about peace activists and
recruited confidential informants inside lawful advocacy organizations like
Greenpeace and PETA. Less than a month ago, President Bush signed a statement
declaring that he is authorized to open the domestic mail of American citizens
without a warrant. This weekend, The New York Times revealed that the Pentagon
has been using “National Security Letters” to obtain banking and credit records
of hundreds of Americans.
“Congress should not let this president off the hook for inappropriate
surveillance by the Pentagon,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU
Washington Legislative Office. “Americans must once again be confident we can
exercise our constitutionally protected right to protest without becoming the
subject of a secret government file.”
In response to the ACLU’s FOIA requests filed on February 1, 2006, the
Defense Department has released dozens of TALON reports that were compiled on
Americans. Many of the reports focus on anti-military recruitment events and
protests, including activities organized by the Quaker organization American
Friends Service Committee, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, and
Catholic Worker. The TALON reports tracked events in 13 states and the District
of Columbia: Alabama, California, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana,
Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and
Texas.
The ACLU said that, even though the Defense Department has conceded that much
of this information should not have been retained in its TALON database, there
are still many unanswered questions.
“We do not know whether the Department of Defense maintains other threat
databases that include similar information, nor whether Department of Defense
personnel are engaged in other information-gathering about United States
citizens,” said the ACLU in its report. “We do not know the extent to which
other federal agencies might have been involved in collecting this information.
We do not know whether the information improperly included in the TALON database
was distributed to other government agencies.”
The report added, “we have only the Pentagon’s word that the errors and
misjudgments that led to widespread surveillance of U.S. citizens have been
corrected.”
The ACLU report, No Real Threat: The Pentagon’s Secret Database on Peaceful
Protest, is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/27988pub20070117.html
The Pentagon document released today as a result of the ACLU lawsuit is
online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/28021lgl20070117.html
More information on government surveillance is online at: www.aclu.org/spyfiles
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