And those we hire to protect us. They think our own citizens are the terrorists:
Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents show.
The files, made public Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, depict a pattern of infiltration of the activists' organizations in 2005 and 2006. The activists contend that the authorities were trying to determine whether they posed a security threat to the United States. But none of the 43 pages of summaries and computer logs - some with agents' names and whole paragraphs blacked out - mention criminal or even potentially criminal acts, the legal standard for initiating such surveillance.
State police officials said they did not curtail the protesters' freedoms.
The spying, detailed in logs of at least 288 hours of surveillance over a 14-month period, recalls similar infiltration by FBI agents of civil rights and anti-war groups decades ago, particularly under the administration of President Richard M. Nixon.
[snip]
In February 2006, the national ACLU and its affiliates filed multiple federal Freedom of Information requests seeking records of Pentagon surveillance of anti-war groups around the country. Using information from a secret Pentagon database, NBC News reported that a unit of the Department of Defense had been accumulating intelligence about domestic organizations and their protest activities as part of a mission to track "potential terrorist threats."
"It serves no security purpose to infiltrate peaceful groups," said Michael German, a former FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism and who joined the ACLU two years ago as policy counsel in its Washington legislative office. "It completely misuses law enforcement resources."
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, German said, the government has "actively encouraged" local police agencies to become intelligence gatherers and to compile information that does not necessarily have a connection to criminal activity.
4 comments:
-b-b-b-but if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about....
Strange how the first thing that government gets rid of in cost cutting measures is oversight...
Not to worry because we are all set to try Osama bin Laden's... chauffeur. I understand that his barber and travel agent are also scheduled.
I would assume they will go for the THIRD trial on the Miami Ninja Haitian Homeless, who are not exactly operating on all cylinders.
Gee, it's nice to know there are no more murders, rapes, robberies, and such for the police to look into.
You know that war protesters make a big mess, throwing fake blood on the ground and yelling. It disturbs the peace and we can't have that. Damned hippies! They sit on the grass, too.
Tasers work really well on those people, and it isn't a crime to zap people several times. So who needs oversight? Police are never wrong.
And finally, if we caught Osama's driver we can show the world how we deal with such terrorists! Obviously guilty.. must have been speeding on the wrong side of the road while talking on his cell phone! Hang them all! And the car!
Post a Comment