...I honestly have no idea what to say about this.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has released documentation confirming government surveillance of groups opposed to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law banning openly lesbian, gay and bisexual service members. The government's TALON reports were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) in January. The release of the documents follows media reports indicating government surveillance of civilian groups at several universities across the country. The Department of Defense acknowledged that it had "inappropriately" collected information on protestors in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to a February report by United Press International.
"The Department of Defense has now confirmed the existence of a surveillance program monitoring LGBT groups," said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of SLDN. "Pentagon leaders have also acknowledged inappropriately collecting some of the information in the TALON database. That information should be destroyed and no similar surveillance should be authorized in the future. Free expression is not a threat to our national security."
Although the recently released TALON reports may not be a complete list of groups monitored, it does confirm domestic surveillance of protests at New York University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. DoD has indicated that it continues to search for other documents related to SLDN's FOIA request....
(PDF, Adobe Reader Required) Department of Defense TALON documents at sldn.org
Leaving aside the very concept that the Department of Defense is engaged in domestic spying ... what the hell did they think these groups were going to do? What have they ever done to make the Pentagon think that they could possibly be any sort of threat? To be sure, it's entirely appropriate for the DoD to say to its recruiters, "Hey, the students at UC Santa Cruz are planning a protest against you. Be prepared, and don't escalate." It's another thing entirely for the DoD to engage in covert or prolonged surveillance of those groups.
The Department of Defense has acknowledged that the information was "inappropriately" collected. Of course, this doesn't mean that they're going to stop collecting "inappropriately" although they say they will; it likely just means that they're going to try harder not to get caught at it next time.
Of course, this comes from Rumsfeld's Department of Defense. Why on earth would I be surprised? And it comes from this administration, which has demonstrated a cavalier disregard of those pesky things like human rights, never mind the even more minor issues like constitutional rights. So, really, why would this be at all surprising?
And yet it is, somehow. Just when you think this administration has gotten as ridiculously petty as it possibly can, it demonstrates that yes, it can and will go lower still.
Posted by iain at April 11, 2006 05:35 PM
