posted 06-16-2004 07:08 PM            

Intelligence: The Pentagon—Spying in America?

By Michael Isikoff Investigative Correspondent Newsweek

June 21 issue - Last February, two Army counterintelligence agents showed up at the University of Texas law school and demanded to see the roster from a conference on Islamic law held a few days earlier. Their reason: they were trying to track down students who the agents claimed had been asking "suspicious" questions. "I felt like I was in 'Law & Order'," said one student after being grilled by one of the agents. The incident provoked a brief campus uproar, and the Army later admitted the agents had exceeded their authority. But if the Pentagon has its way, the Army may not have to make such amends in the future. Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants.

Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA always has been exempt—although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency—so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. The justification: "Current counterterrorism operations," the report explains, which require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States." DIA officials say they mainly want the provision so they can more easily question American businessmen and college students who travel abroad. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman concedes the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States. "It's a new world we live in," he says. "We have to do what is necessary for force protection." Among those pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at NORTHCOM, the new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night."

posted 06-17-2004 05:27 PM            

HOW DARE YOU! Criticizing our gracious "HOMELAND" leader! You must love the ALL SEEING EYE (Sauron) and Pentagon spying on US CITIZENS or your with AL QAIDA.

MEIN HERR RIDGE!!

MEIN HERR ASHCROFT!!

EIN HOMELAND

EIN REICHLAND

EIN FUHRER BUSH!!!!

posted 06-21-2004 12:21 AM            

Tuesday, June 15th, 2004

Spying in America: How the Pentagon is Overcoming Privacy Laws to Spy At
Home

A new provision buried in an intelligence appropriations bill moving
through Congress would exempt Pentagon agencies from the Privacy Act,
vastly expanding their ability to gather intelligence inside the United
States, including recruiting citizens as informants.

We spend the rest of the hour taking a look at government spy operations
here in the United States. In the 1970s, army intelligence agents were
caught spying on antiwar protesters and Congress passed the Privacy Act,
which requires officials seeking information to disclose who they are and
what they want the information for.

Now, a provision buried in an intelligence appropriations bill moving
through Congress would exempt Pentagon agencies from the Privacy Act,
vastly expanding their ability to conduct domestic spy operations.

But recent events show how domestic military intelligence gathering can
lead to a government assault on free speech. In February, Army
intelligence officers visited the University of Texas law school days
after a student-organized conference on Islamic Law and Women's Rights.
The agents questioned participants and demanded a non-existent roster of
attendees. The Army later apologized for acting outside its jurisdiction,
but under the new intelligence provision, such investigations may become
more common. The intelligence bill is scheduled to go before the House
Intelligence Committee tomorrow.

* Michael Isikoff, investigative correspondent for Newsweek who first
reported this story in this week's issue.
* Sahar Aziz, Student at University of Texas Law School and organizer of
a conference on Islamic Law and Women's Rights held in February 2004,
which was visited by an Army intelligence officer, prompting an apology
from the Army for operating outside their jurisdiction.
* Kate Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the phone by Kate Martin, Center for National
Securities Study. The student at the University of Texas Law School who
organized The Islamic Law and Women's Rights conference, Sahar Aziz and
Michael Isikoff, who first reported this story in this week's issue of
"Newsweek" magazine. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Michael, why
don't you give us an overlay of exactly what this bill is and the
provision that not a lot of people know about.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Well, it is not entirely clear because, like so much that
the intelligence committees do, this was done behind closed doors, in
closed session. No public hearings, no public debate. And apparently not
much questioning of the Pentagon about why they wanted this provision in.
But if you take a look at it, and you take a look at the report that the
senate intelligence committee has since made public about the provision,
it does raise a lot of questions. So, what it does, is lists this
restriction of The Privacy Act so that Pentagon Intelligence agencies, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, or the Separate Service Agency --
Intelligence branches, the Army intelligence, Navy intelligence, can
question U.S. citizens, U.S. persons, green-card holder, anybody who is
residing in the United States, without identifying who they are and what
the Pentagon says it need this is provision for, is so it can recruit
sources inside the United States to help the War on Terrorism. Now the
main explanation given by D.I.A., and I talked to some of their officials
quite a bit about this a week ago is, they want to be able to question
Americans who are traveling abroad, businessmen, college students, who are
going into countries where they have a hard time getting access to, where
there might be large U.S. troop concentrations. But when you probe a
little deeper beyond that, you find that there are others in the pentagon
who have been interested in this provision as well. Stephen Cambone, the
Undersecretary for Intelligence, signed off on it. There is this new
northern command created by Secretary Rumsfeld two years ago In Colorado
Springs, whose assignment is home land defense. They want to -- they're
interested in this provision as well and the broad rubric of force
protection, which is what military intelligence is assigned to do, would
allow it, according to pentagon officials, to conduct intelligence
gathering on any suspected terrorist plot to a U.S. military base or U.S.
military contractor. That's a pretty broad mandate in which this provision
can be used and it does raise questions, then, certainly about how it will
be used.

AMY GOODMAN: Why don't you tell us what happened this past February at
your student conference, University of Texas?

SAHAR AZIA: Well, it was actually quite an unexpected event after the
fact. The conference was very successful. It was very well attended by
Muslims and Non-Muslims, by students and non-students and, you know, we
ended the conference feeling very proud of ourselves and having completed
a successful one and were congratulated by numerous people. And then a
week later suddenly special agent from the Army Intelligence shows up out
of nowhere and roamed the campus looking for this nonexistent roster and a
video tape of the conference and in order to get that he was asking for me
because everyone kept telling him well, she was the one that organized the
conference. The process made many people intimidated and just shocked. I
was very shocked because there was nothing at the conference that would
have made one even believe that something like this would happen. So, it
was definitely a major chill on free speech and on academic freedom. I was
very concerned that if something like this happens in the future, at
another conference, will anyone show up because people will be scared that
they're spied on and won't feel comfortable to speak freely about issues
that is are very important because we're very heavily involved and we need
to understand the culture and the religion and, you know, the people,
etc., of the region.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you end up soliciting an apology from them?

SAHAR AZIA: Well, we held a press conference a few days after he came to
campus and made it very clear, you know, through the media that we were
not pleased with what happened. We questioned whether they had
jurisdiction and we were very concerned about the chilling of academic
freedom, etc. And through our press conference, we encouraged actually the
journalists to do investigative research and challenged the Army
Intelligence and The Intelligence Community to explain, you know, why this
happened. Because they didn't have any legal papers, you know, warranting
their right to this information. And at the same time there was no one in
uniform there. We didn't know that anyone from the intelligence community
was at the conference. So, that was the way -- that was our indirect way
of asking for an explanation. We were pleased that they gave us an
apology. We didn't expect one, to be honest. But at least they did admit
that they were out of their jurisdiction and I think the public suddenly
realized there were a lot of things going on that they didn't realize was
happening about, you know, with regards to domestic surveillance and how
they were being impacted, especially Non-Muslims. I think some people
think it's not me. It is just this group, this subculture that I don't
know anything about that I don't really care about. But it's really
expanded. Not to say that that's justified. But even just anyone who
associates now with this topic or with this, you know, these people or
this group is now, guilty by association based on nothing, you know, based
on just wanting to learn.

AMY GOODMAN: Sahar Aziz is a student at University of Texas Law School
that organized the women and Islamic Law Conference this past February.
Kate Martin, Director for National Security Studies. Can you give us the
history of domestic spying and how this fits in?

KATE MARTIN: Well, this is very troubling because it looks like it's a
resurgence of something that we thought had ended. You know, everybody
knows or most people know about the history of the C.I.A. And the F.B.I.
spying for the Anti-Vietnam War Movements and on the Civil Rights Movement
and on a lot of other groups, including up through the 1980's. Basically
what happened is government agents used undercover agents to go into
groups and, in many cases, act as agents provocateurs to encourage illegal
acts by the groups, to make the people in the groups feel par noise with
lots of justification and turn on each other and then they wrote it all
down in files. So, we had this phenomenon of literally hundreds of
thousands of files being created on Americans and on their First Amendment
protective political activities. There were reforms in the 1970's and
1990's that were intended to end that -- 80's that were intended to end
that and make sure that the agencies doing surveillance inside the U.S.
concentrate on criminal activities and one of the ways that was done was
to say the C.I.A. and the defense department have no business spying on
Americans. Another way that was done was to say we're going to have public
guidelines on how the F.B.I. conducts surveillance. And so while there are
a lot of problems with those guidelines, we at least know here's what the
F.B.I. is supposed to be doing, for example, when it uses undercover
agents. What this -- what's being proposed here is an elimination of one
of the key prohibitions that prevented the Defense Department from
undertaking the kind of surveillance that was just described at the
University of Texas. If this bill were to pass, the next time they show
up, they can pretend to be somebody else, like a student from another
university organizing a conference, ask for the roster of everyone who
attended the conference and then put it in their data bank. Where it will
sit forever and then be -- they can data mine it, etc. And no one will
even know. You know, this is all part of -- and this is the way it
happened the first time is that, you know, they've always had -- the
Defense Department's always had military bases, of course, in the U.S. and
the mission of protecting those bases. But now they have this new mission
of, quote, "homeland defense". And we really need a lot more public
discussion about what that means to have the military inside the U.S.
concentrating on counterterrorism. Because we don't have -- while we have
terrible attacks, it is hard to think how the military plays a role in
finding the next al-Qaeda terrorist inside the U.S. And instead of having
any public explanation from the military about how they might do that,
they might have this stealth effort to allow themselves to on an
undercover basis both collect information from Americans about themselves
and about their neighbors and friends.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Isikoff, you write about this in this week's
"Newsweek" about recruiting citizens to spy on each other. There was a
collective revulsion against the total information awareness program in
the Pentagon and ultimately John Poindexter was forced out. How much of
this is a continuation of this and what exactly is laid out there?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Well, it is hard to say. As I said before, this was sort
of done, you know, in closed session, no public hearings, no explanations.
From the public explanations by the Pentagon, one thing that strikes me
about this is you have the 9/11 commission wrapping up its work. It's got
its public hearings this week and recommendations next month. One of the
principle issues they've been grappling is should we create a domestic
intelligence agency, i.e., [like] MI-5 in Great Britain and the argument
made against that in the debate what are the Civil Liberties implications
of creating a separate agency whose responsibility would be intelligence
gathering inside the united states and surveillance. That has been a
public debate and there's been a lot written about it. Yeah, here you have
the Pentagon essentially making a move to sort of do the same thing
without anybody paying any attention to it. And, you know, if that
happens, what kind of oversight would there be, what precisely would be
the mission? None of these questions have been asked today.

AMY GOODMAN: Where does the bill go from here?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: It has been passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It is coming up, a similar vote is coming up before the House Intelligence
Committee tomorrow. And then it will have to be thrashed out in conference
and passed by both houses. But it will be interesting to see first if the
House Intelligence Committee will do this debate, take this up in public
session and, secondly, if they will be asking anymore questions than the
senators did and, you know, what I'm told, almost no questions were
asked.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note, we have to leave it there. MICHAEL
ISIKOFF, investigative correspondent for "Newsweek," Sahar Aziz, student
at the University Of Texas Law School, and Kate Martin for the Center For
International Securities Program.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~