The Pentagon - Read Bush & Obama - Admits It Is Spying On You. So Is AT&T, Again Read Bush & Obama. And the FBI. And the NSA. And the CIA. And read below about Verizon, SBC & BellSouth.
NOTE: I'm providing updates below. When possible, subscription free URLs will be added so that anyone may read the full text of articles.
• Please note especially the update of June 2013, which reveals the ever expanding capacity, reach & secret house of mirrors that is now spying on everyone on earth whose communications, business transactions & travels are in any way visible in cyberspace •
For some time, we've known " the Pentagon" is spying on American citizens. "The Pentagon," of course, is George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney [& relentlessly & disgracefully since his election, Obama] - ad infinitum, ad nauseum - and is indeed finally the whole American government. Don't tell me 'It can't happen here.' I lived through the era in which J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy & the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) ruined the life of any citizen they damn well pleased. It not only can happen here. It has happened. What is perhaps most insidious, however, is that computerization & a steady loss of personal privacy have made the creation of 'enemies lists' infinitely easier & more complete. When the FBI's founder & great criminal Hoover died, he had paper files in his offices on about a half million Americans who either did not like him or were being blackmailed by him. His lifelong companion & the assistant director of the agency, Clyde Tolson, secretly disposed of the files, which were never seen again. Today things are very different. The files can & surely do involve almost all of us, & they exist not on space consuming & cumbersome paper but on little hard disks that are copied for every other governmental department, secret government agency or group that wants them in order to satisfy its perverted purposes & notions about Americanism, Christianity, political activism, terrorism or whatever (sometimes 'whatever' is exactly the right word). It is a serious business, because we are now led by fascists who seek to create a thousand year regime by doing things that in my lifetime & clear memory other men did which led us to put them in the dock at Nuremberg. And do not say, "Oh fascism is too strong a word." Fascism is the political strategy in which the distinction between government & big business is eliminated by a political leader & party in order to get big business to provide absolute & enduring support. That is exactly what Bush & company did & the Obama administration continues to do: Today, our government serves big business with tax relief & deregulation that is catastrophic for our society as a whole, big business supports the regime with wealth, media control & payola, & to hell with the rest of us & anything related to the national interest.
So yes. What is revealed in the article below is bad. Terrible. Monstrously criminal. And as ominous as a pack of hyenas in each of our living, bed & bath rooms. It has nothing to do with anyone's sexual orientation. Rather, it has everything to do with control by means of intimidation, smearing & fear. It is a prolegomenon to the practice of Hell for us all.
pageoneq.com/news/2006/sldn_041106.html
Pentagon admits to surveillance of gay groups, releases documents
by PageOneQ
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department of Defense, which confirm the military's surveillance of organizations working to repeal the Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy, PageOneQ has learned.
"The very idea that the federal government believes freedom of speech is a threat to national security is unconscionable," Steve Ralls, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s Director of Communications told PageOneQ today. “The Pentagon has acknowledged that collection of the information was perhaps inappropriate,” Mr. Ralls said as he cited an earlier report by United Press International on the Pentagon’s admission.
Mr. Ralls also explained that Servicemembers Legal Defense Network fully expects the federal government to “discontinue surveillance because there was no legitimate reason to begin it in the first place."
The Department of Defense, according to the 16 pages of documents it released, monitored protests against the DADT policy at college campuses in New York City, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz. A counterintelligence agent reported on the protests against Military recruitment on campuses had "a strong potential for confrontation at this protest..." Discounting a theory that the protest was taking place in a separate location from Military recruiting, the agent wrote "tactics have included using mass text paging to inform others of the location of the recruiters."
The Department of Defense has indicated that it's search for documents relating to surveillance of groups opposed to Don't Ask, Don't tell continues.
The documents are available here.
The SLDN Press release is below
WASHINGTON, DC – 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.
In February, SLDN filed a lawsuit as part of its efforts to obtain information related to the government’s domestic spy program. The TALON documents, complete information on the lawsuit and the domestic surveillance program are available online at www.Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.org.
Originally published on Tuesday April 11, 2006.
The Pentagon - Read Bush & Obama - Admits It Is Spying On You. So Is AT&T, Again Read Bush & Obama. And the FBI. And the NSA. And the CIA. And read below about Verizon, SBC & BellSouth.
NOTE: I'm providing updates below. When possible, subscription free URLs will be added so that anyone may read the full text of articles.
• Please note especially the update of June 2013, which reveals the ever expanding capacity, reach & secret house of mirrors that is now spying on everyone on earth whose communications, business transactions & travels are in any way visible in cyberspace •
For some time, we've known " the Pentagon" is spying on American citizens. "The Pentagon," of course, is George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney [& relentlessly & disgracefully since his election, Obama] - ad infinitum, ad nauseum - and is indeed finally the whole American government. Don't tell me 'It can't happen here.' I lived through the era in which J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy & the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) ruined the life of any citizen they damn well pleased. It not only can happen here. It has happened. What is perhaps most insidious, however, is that computerization & a steady loss of personal privacy have made the creation of 'enemies lists' infinitely easier & more complete. When the FBI's founder & great criminal Hoover died, he had paper files in his offices on about a half million Americans who either did not like him or were being blackmailed by him. His lifelong companion & the assistant director of the agency, Clyde Tolson, secretly disposed of the files, which were never seen again. Today things are very different. The files can & surely do involve almost all of us, & they exist not on space consuming & cumbersome paper but on little hard disks that are copied for every other governmental department, secret government agency or group that wants them in order to satisfy its perverted purposes & notions about Americanism, Christianity, political activism, terrorism or whatever (sometimes 'whatever' is exactly the right word). It is a serious business, because we are now led by fascists who seek to create a thousand year regime by doing things that in my lifetime & clear memory other men did which led us to put them in the dock at Nuremberg. And do not say, "Oh fascism is too strong a word." Fascism is the political strategy in which the distinction between government & big business is eliminated by a political leader & party in order to get big business to provide absolute & enduring support. That is exactly what Bush & company did & the Obama administration continues to do: Today, our government serves big business with tax relief & deregulation that is catastrophic for our society as a whole, big business supports the regime with wealth, media control & payola, & to hell with the rest of us & anything related to the national interest.
So yes. What is revealed in the article below is bad. Terrible. Monstrously criminal. And as ominous as a pack of hyenas in each of our living, bed & bath rooms. It has nothing to do with anyone's sexual orientation. Rather, it has everything to do with control by means of intimidation, smearing & fear. It is a prolegomenon to the practice of Hell for us all.
pageoneq.com/news/2006/sldn_041106.html
Pentagon admits to surveillance of gay groups, releases documents
by PageOneQ
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department of Defense, which confirm the military's surveillance of organizations working to repeal the Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy, PageOneQ has learned.
"The very idea that the federal government believes freedom of speech is a threat to national security is unconscionable," Steve Ralls, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s Director of Communications told PageOneQ today. “The Pentagon has acknowledged that collection of the information was perhaps inappropriate,” Mr. Ralls said as he cited an earlier report by United Press International on the Pentagon’s admission.
Mr. Ralls also explained that Servicemembers Legal Defense Network fully expects the federal government to “discontinue surveillance because there was no legitimate reason to begin it in the first place."
The Department of Defense, according to the 16 pages of documents it released, monitored protests against the DADT policy at college campuses in New York City, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz. A counterintelligence agent reported on the protests against Military recruitment on campuses had "a strong potential for confrontation at this protest..." Discounting a theory that the protest was taking place in a separate location from Military recruiting, the agent wrote "tactics have included using mass text paging to inform others of the location of the recruiters."
The Department of Defense has indicated that it's search for documents relating to surveillance of groups opposed to Don't Ask, Don't tell continues.
The documents are available here.
The SLDN Press release is below
WASHINGTON, DC – 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.
In February, SLDN filed a lawsuit as part of its efforts to obtain information related to the government’s domestic spy program. The TALON documents, complete information on the lawsuit and the domestic surveillance program are available online at www.Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.org.
Originally published on Tuesday April 11, 2006.