NBC reporters Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC investigative unit have obtained a 400 page secret Department of Defense (DOD) database including information on not only violent anti-government groups but also peaceful anti-war protest groups. The directive was given to compile this database to an obscure government agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA).
Granted, the government of course has the right to collect information on and investigate threats to the government, but NBC has uncovered frightening evidence that many of the groups in this database are not threats at all, nor is there any reason on the outset to believe that they are dangerous in any way. One of the most absurd of these is a small group of Quakers who met to protest military recruiting in high schools:
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.
If you don't know anything about the Quakers or their history, one of their most important beliefs is pacifism - to the extent that they were hated for refusing the take up arms during the revolutionary war. In 1987 they received the Nobel Peace Prize! To think that a small group of Quakers is a threat to the government is laughable.
According to George Lotz, a former DOD official for 30 years and former Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight, the information they are collecting is not justified:
"I demonstrated with Martin Luther King in 1963 in Washington," he says, "and I certainly didn t want anybody putting my name on any kind of list. I wasn't any threat to the government," he adds.
NBC also talked to former Army intelligence officer Christopher Pyle who agrees with Lotz, citing the DOD monitoring of protest groups during the war in Vietnam. In 1970 he authored an article like NBC's which resulted in public outrage and eventually helped result in stricter guidelines that they are apparently ignoring.
There was a public outcry when they did they same thing during Vietnam, and there should be a public outcry now. This administration is moving even closer towards the policies of the Nixon-era. Unfortunately, I am not surprised in the slightest. I can't help but wonder whether this was released purposefully to scare those in the anti-war movement and stop those who want to get involved. Don't let them scare you; they weren't able to get away with this forever then, and they won't now.
In addition, this is my first posting on morons.org and I thank spatula for giving me the chance to add my own voice to a site that I've frequented and enjoyed for years.
