Posted on 12/13/2005 5:16:49 PM PST by ADemocratNoMore
Is the Pentagon spying on Americans? Secret database obtained by NBC News tracks ‘suspicious’ domestic groups.
WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I would like to read you source, if you could direct me to it.
It's titled "1676, End of American Independence".
The Quakers ended up fouling their own nest and the other colonists began distrusting them. They never recovered.
As you've written the above, of course, I would agree that this is a "bad" thing. But now to put this in context. And that is not what you are doing. Members and groups have "threatened" the US Military. That's quite different from simple "dissent", no? Yes, it is.
Not directed at you Alia.
Military, CIA, FBI, IRS what difference is there which division is doing the spying?
Our enemies have been trained well to take advantage of our liberties to bring us down. Charging those attempting to defend us from terrorism with racism, oppression, hate crimes, McCarthyism.
Do I like this situation that we are in? Hell no! But until someone can show me what else we can do, we're kind of stuck.
The next terrorist attack, people will be screaming for heads to roll. Why didn't we stop it? Why didn't we do more? Why are our investigative agencies not doing a better job? What did they know and when did they know it?
I see nothing wrong with the military actions from what I have seen from NBC's report. One entry on their PDF document said something to the effect of "Citizens exercising their constitutional rights to protest" On page 6 I think it was.
If you live with loonies whether left or right wing, you keep your eyes open.
I do have a problem if this was an attempt to find SOMETHING to charge them with so they could be jailed and harassed with whatever law they could dig up.
Federal agents have gone out of their way to encourage law breaking and later charge the person with a crime. These Federal agents are scum. That is not what I see happening in this case.
As I left the keyboard to get more coffee, I was thinking about *what* would motivate someone to be "bringing up" constitutional liberties and how "wrong" the military is in doing what needs must be done NOW, and in a time of war.
Some things are best left unsaid.
Does that make their concerns any different? I know Baptists I wouldn't call Baptist, and Methodists I wouldn't call Methodist. Must they conform to what you see as historical Quaker standards before you would give them a pass? Never mind you (a citizen of the state of Indiana) is calling on the national government to investigate citizens of another state. The Framers must be so proud
That would depend on the definitions of "threat" and "dissent."
However, currently, I reside, and vote, in Virginia.
Now, about Quakers, unless and until they conform to the standards adhered to by my Great Grandmother, they are FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE.
(NOTE: The difference between Eastern and Midwestern Quakers became quite pronounced during the Civil War. If either group excommunicated folks, I assure you it would be mutual.)
THEY WERE!
Hillary Clinton's FBI domestic anti-terror task force leader DID identify "radical Christians" and "ring wing groups" as HIS TOP INTERNAL TERRORIST THREAT in the months before Y2K turnover.
(And that ignores the tens of thousands of man-days spent by the FBI in the woods looking for Eric R. Rudolf
ROTFLMBO!
Ah, the 'we are in charge now' argument. It doesn't make it right and I applaud NBC for releasing the documentation
Flushing them out. When and if [there is still hope, the balm of the feeble] Iran goes hot, it would be well to know who they are.
But if they don't protect themselves, and most especially each other, they're not going to be able to protect us.
I took a quick look at what is obviously a scan of a hardcopy of a spreadsheet. Looks to me like open source stuff. It's quite possible no one was "surveiled" in the sense of wiretaping, shotgun mics, or even garbage can diving. Just read the newspapers, the websites of the groups in question, and maybe asked a few questions of civilian law enforcement.
But the bottom line is, make threats and the object of those threats may decide to take a look to see if you are serious, or just a bunch of windbags. It appears most of the groups were windbags.
Notice that none the entries in the Classification column are anything other than U (Unclassified) or U/FOUO (Unclassified/For Official Use Only), neither of which is a "classified" category. Of course the existence of the column sort of implies that there *might* be some entries that are "S" or even "TS" or even one of those along with "SCI", but since they aren't shown, we can't really know they exist.
Clinton did. There were many churches investigated by the IRS during the Clinton Reign of Terror and did we forget Waco? No matter how wacky Koresh(sp) may have been, Waco could have been handled in a much more civilized manner.
Furthermore, stories are starting to come out how Gore was assigned to handle wiretapping and eavesdropping on American Citizens. Moreover, what was Hillary doing with 1208 FBI files?
So, let us watch where the ball drops on this one because President Bush has not had either Attorney General send in agents to burn down a place and kill people and without a doubt 091101 is an overlapping Terrorist attack that took place only a few months into the Bush Administration.
After all is said and done, it wasn't right-wingers and Christians that flew planes into the WTC or the Pentagon now was it???
Is that your measuring stick? Because nobody died, it's OK for the Pentagon to keep files and spy on domestic groups? These are Quakers, for crying out loud. Their meeting was hardly a "threat."
But that's OK... you go ahead and march lock-step into a new Dark Age of American civil rights.
Dark Age of American Civil Rights? ROFLOLOL If we are all dead what good are our Rights?
Don't even answer the question. It would be a waste of time. People who think their is a government agent waiting for them around every corner scare me with the way they think.
Do you doubt that they were?
Just because they're Quakers doesn't mean they can't be misled and used for subversive purposes. A lot of otherwise harmless groups got infiltrated by Commies, then subverted and redirected during the Viet Nam years.
In a time of war, especially when there is a very real threat of domestic terrorism, the military is wise to monitor all of these groups. If for no other reason than to assure that they are not risks.
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