"I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking."

Indeed.

Maybe it's something like this:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Pentagon Domestic Spying
An NBC Nightly News piece yesterday on domestic spying by the military featured yours truly discussing an intelligence database of 1,519 "suspicious incidents" that covers the period July 2004-May 2005.

The database -- which I obtained from a military source -- is a rare look inside the actual work of the Defense Department conducting counter-terrorism and "force protection" missions inside the United States. Building on the NBC story, what does the database actually show?

The database includes three categories of incidents: The first are actual, seemingly valid potential terrorism tip-offs. The second category of incidents are anti-war and anti-military protests by civilians. The third are security incidents with only the most tentative terrorism connection.

The second category of "incidents" -- those based on surveillance of anti-war and anti-nuclear groups, as well as students and others protesters -- should be disturbing to any Americans who care about civil liberties in this age of counter-terrorism because they indicate that military intelligence and local law enforcement agencies are routinely watching lawful protests.

But it is the third category of incidents that is the most numerous, the most revealing and the most corrosive. The hyper vigilant homeland security types probably wouldn't be monitoring the web sites, intercepting the Emails, and sending undercover agents into meetings of lawful and peaceful Americans if they had not accumulated this mass of self-perpetuating "threat" reporting that does little more than pad a database to suggest domestic dangers by sheer repetition.

These domestic threat mirages accumulated by a directionless system actually serve to weaken counter-terrorism efforts by diverting attention from real problems and actual threats. What is more, the "suspicious activity" mentality that breeds government collection and overreach is at the core of almost all of America's problems since 9/11, domestically and overseas.

The Defense Department database -- prepared by the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), which I have already written about and Walter Pincus has been reporting on for this newspaper -- is the first real inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection since 9/11.

Under the excuse of "force protection" -- what the Defense Department told NBC News was the "protection of Defense Department installations, interests and personnel" -- U.S. military special agents and military police constantly report any suspicious activity that might conceivably suggest a potential threat.

In last night's report, NBC focused on one such report, the monitoring of an anti-war Quaker meeting in Lake Worth, Florida by the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group (that, according to the database). The database categorizes the meeting, which was to plan a protest at a military recruitment station, as a "threat."

"This is incredible," said one group member. "It's an example of paranoia by our government," he says. "We're not doing anything illegal."

The database includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests as "threats."...

...But most important, the database includes hundreds upon hundreds of incidents that are not only labeled "not credible" but also are absurd indicators of any kind of threat. An example:

* August 2004, Atlanta, Georgia, a Navy enlisted man is arrested for driving under the influence by the Cobb County Police Department "and upon search of vehicle, discovered a picture of Usama bin Laden displayed as a screensaver on E-4's cellular telephone."

Send that goofball to Guantanamo!


The database is jammed packed with these types of silly reports. I've already written about CIFA's concern about stolen or lost identification cards; the database includes 109 incidents -- that's almost 10 percent -- where military people mostly report losing their IDs.

Anybody out there have kids who perhaps conduct this "suspicious activity"? 1-800-CALLSPY, and I'm not kidding: The 902nd Military Intelligence Group is standing by.

One after another, over and over, potential surveillance, "solicitation" of military wives, crank bomb threats, girls trying to get onto military bases to see their boyfriends without ID, that is the stuff of CIFA's "suspicious activity" database.

None of these incidents go anywhere. There is not one case where the "subject" is found to be an actual threat.

Welcome to Rumsfeld and Cheney's world of "actionable intelligence" where no scrap of information is too trivial, where the "dots" must be connected to find the next hijack conspiracy, where the seemingly innocent in bars and strip joints and mosques and college campuses and Quaker meeting houses could be the next Jose Padilla or Mohamed Atta.

It is this assumption that everything is potential actionable intelligence that has led to renditions and torture and secrets prisons abroad. Now in the United States, it is contributing to an ever growing domestic military, intelligence and law enforcement triangle. I'm torn between saying that these homeland security goons are a menace and suggesting that perhaps if they are so gung ho they should get on the next plane and employ their fabulous talents in Iraq.

Perhaps Iraq is in the shape it's in because these are precisely the techniques these goons have been applying. Cracking down on the little guy and letting the real terrorists- like the Iran-backed Chalabi- run free.

Some of the comments to this are particularly germane:

...why did 3+ FBI agents incl Randy Glass, Robert Wright, and Sibel Edmonds claim that they were being OBSTRUCTED in tracking terrorism. That alone should be enough for an inquiry.

But what of our past Nat Security Adviser who BRAGGED that he created Al-Qaida for geo-political chess-playing, and to LURE the Soviets into Afghanistan?

The CIA funded the "Mujahideen Al-Qaida Project" for 25 years, and this is quietly admitted. But there was joint operations in Aug 2001, per Chossudovsky.

It only cost US taxpayers $6 billion to $20 billion to fund Al-Qaida via Pakistan, plus their protected heroin sales, plus Clinton funded the Taliban govt for $6 billion more.

Does this sound like TINFOIL? Or BLACK GOLD? (and anti-communism)

What of James Baker claiming Saudis have "diplomatic immunity" from being sued by 9-11 widows -- blocking even 'discovery' -- while they lock up the Padillas and Al-Arians and Damras of the world?

What about Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, our ALLY, funding the terrorists on Venice Florida?

What of Chertoff defending Dr. Elamir who funneled millions of OPM "offshore" and had contacts with Al-Qaida?

What of Bush's longstanding relations with all the Bin Laden oil players?

What about FBI PROTECTS OSAMA BIN LADEN’S “RIGHT TO PRIVACY”?

What about Let Bin Laden stay free, says CIA man ("Buzzy" Krongard)?

What about BILL CLINTON and "OSAMAGATE", as reported (but quashed) by the Republican Party Committee?


ALL THIS IS MAINSTREAM NEWS, ALBEIT BARELY.
But you'd have to be really naïve to see ALL this (and more) and think it's all just a bunch of coincidences.

Naive, or well paid.