[Reader-list] "Pentagon Spying on Gay, Antiwar Groups More Widespread than Previously Acknowledged"

[Curt Gambetta]

Eek! From Democracynow.org... -curt

Thursday, June 29th, 2006
Pentagon Spying on Gay, Antiwar Groups More Widespread
than Previously Acknowledged

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network released
documents earlier this week showing that the Pentagon
conducted surveillance on a more extensive level than
first reported late last year. We speak with the
executive director of SLDN and a staff attorney with
the American Civil Liberties Union who recently filed
a federal lawsuit to force the agency to turn over
additional records. [includes rush transcript] Earlier
this week, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
released documents showing that the Pentagon conducted
surveillance on a more extensive level than first
reported late last year. De-classified documents show
that the agency spied on "Don't Ask, Do't Tell"
protests and anti-war protests at several universities
around the country. They also show that the government
monitored student e-mails and planted undercover
agents at least one protest.

But the Pentagon has not released all information on
its surveillance activities. The American Civil
Liberties Union recently filed a federal lawsuit to
force the agency to turn over additional records. The
lawsuit charges that the Pentagon is refusing to
comply with Freedom of Information Act requests
seeking records on the ACLU, the American Friends
Service Committee, Greenpeace, Veterans for Peace and
United for Peace and Justice, as well as 26 local
groups and activists.

    * Dixon Osburne, co-founder and Executive Director
of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
    * Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American
Civil Liberties Union.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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AMY GOODMAN: Dixon Osburne now joins from us
Washington, D.C. He is the Executive Director of the
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Can you talk
about what you learned about the Pentagon spying on
your organization?

DIXON OSBURNE: Well, the Pentagon has not released any
documents suggesting that it has spied on
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The documents
that they've released have shown that they have spied
on student groups, including student groups at U.C.
Santa Clara, the state universities in New York, NYU
Law School, and what those documents show is that they
were investigating these groups for potential
terrorist activity. They even called a gay kiss-in at
U.C. Santa Cruz that was trying to protest “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell,” it was, quote, “a credible threat of
terrorism.”

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you learn exactly what was
happening?

DIXON OSBURNE: The story was first reported on NBC
News late last year, and it gave us a window into what
was going on at the Department of Defense. So at SLDN,
we filed FOIAs, Freedom of Information Act requests,
with various agencies within the Department of
Defense, C.I.A., F.B.I., N.S.A. and other agencies,
asking them to release any documents that indicated
that they were spying on student groups or
lesbian/gay/bisexual student groups around the
country.

It was in response to those Freedom of Information Act
requests that the Pentagon started very slowly
dribbling out a few responses, some last year and now
another stack just this past week, confirming that
they indeed were investigating various student groups,
that they were collecting emails, that they, at least
in one case, sent an undercover agent to spy on their
protest and determine what was going on at those
protests, all under this rubric of trying to thwart
terrorism here in the United States.

Instead it's just an indication of how sweeping this
administration's domestic spying program is. They
aren't focused on terrorism. They're focused on
peaceful demonstrations and people exercising their
rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
And so, we are still pressing the Pentagon to release
even more documents.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, this is a stunning revelation,
because clearly now we're talking about a much more
expanded surveillance of, basically, dissent in the
United States under the cover -- or peaceful dissent
under the cover of continuing to fight the war on
terrorism.

DIXON OSBURNE: You're absolutely right. This
administration has said that they are conducting
domestic surveillance only to try to identify
potential links between people living here and
terrorists abroad. And the reality is that that's not
the case, that, in fact, the domestic surveillance
program is extremely grand and extremely sweeping. And
it is very chilling here in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Dixon Osburne,
co-founder and Executive Director of Servicemembers
Legal Defense Network. We're also joined by Ben
Wizner, ACLU staff attorney. The Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network got information under Freedom of
Information Act. You're not having as much luck.

BEN WIZNER: Not yet. I also want to pay my respects to
the Servicemembers Legal Defense Fund. They've been
out on front on this issue. They put in their FOIA
requests early, and they have been able to uncover
through that FOIA request some very important
information that we're talking about today. Following
up on their requests, ACLU affiliates around country
filed a series of FOIA requests on behalf of a whole
litany of antiwar and anti-military recruitment
groups, some of whom had appeared in the Pentagon
database that was released to NBC News.

And we also want to know what kinds of policies and
procedures the Pentagon is relying on. How can they
possibly think that it's appropriate for the United
States military to be maintaining a database of
peaceful protest activities? We've not yet been able
to get any documents. We filed a lawsuit to enforce
that Freedom of Information Act request. We expect
that within the next month or two we will begin to
receive documents in response to our lawsuit.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the responses to your request, have
they been saying that they have no material that meets
your request or that they're precluded, in one way or
another, from releasing it?

BEN WIZNER: No, we have not yet gotten the substantive
request from the military saying that they don't have
responsive material. Essentially they ignore us until
a federal judge requires them to respond to us. But if
we were in a functioning democracy, we wouldn't need
FOIA requests to get to the bottom of what's going on
here. The minute that report was leaked to NBC News,
the minute NBC News reported that grannies and Quakers
and people protesting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at law
schools were in a Pentagon secret database, there
would have been hearings the next week, and Don
Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone would have been dragged
up to Capitol Hill, and there would have been a full
airing of what was going on. And that really is what's
needed here. I mean, we will find out more information
through this FOIA, but Congress's silence here is
really remarkable.

AMY GOODMAN: When you say if we were really
functioning in a democracy, what exactly do you mean?

BEN WIZNER: What I mean is that we have not had any
meaningful congressional oversight of any of these
surveillance activities over the last five or six
years. You know, I do know, Amy, I’ve been here on the
program talking about what we've uncovered through our
FOIAs against the F.B.I., F.B.I. surveillance of
peaceful protesters. What's going on with the N.S.A.
really is a constitutional crisis, and Congress has
yet to play a meaningful role. The reason why the
FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act, has taken on
such great importance over the last four or five years
is that there is no meaningful oversight whatsoever
going on on Capitol Hill. And so, our only choice is
to get this information, bring it before the public
and hope that there's some pressure on the
administration to change its policies.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania
Republican, really went after the Bush administration
around warrantless spying on Americans, said he was
going to subpoena the telecom executives and then
totally backed off. He's a Republican. What about the
Democrats?

BEN WIZNER: Well, you know, it takes the Republicans,
in order for administration officials to be
subpoenaed, in order for documents to be subpoenaed.
So whatever the Democratic Party might do if it were
in power -- and I’m not confident to answer that
question -- it doesn't have the power to do anything
right now.

AMY GOODMAN: It certainly could make noise.

BEN WIZNER: It could make noise, and I think that it
has made some noise. But I’m not here to defend the
Democrats. I mean, the point is this is not a partisan
question. A president saying that neither the courts
nor the Congress has any role in the defense of the
country is a constitutional crisis, not a Republican
or Democrat issue.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Russ Feingold, among the Democrats, has
repeatedly spoken out and obviously opposed the
PATRIOT Act, in terms of insisting that this kind of
continued government surveillance was unacceptable
through our Constitution. But very few other voices,
even among the Democrats, have spoken out.

BEN WIZNER: No, there aren't, and, you know, I’m glad
you mentioned the PATRIOT Act, and we rightly
celebrate Russ Feingold for being the lone courageous
vote against that act that was written in the dead of
night and not read by anybody. But what's so striking
about the PATRIOT Act is that the administration,
which really demonized Congress for not passing it
more quickly, which threatened Congress that the
American people wouldn't be safe unless it got passed
right away, they then went ahead and ignored it.

I mean, what is the PATRIOT Act? The PATRIOT Act is an
amendment of the FISA law. It makes it easier for the
government to get FISA warrants. And while the
administration is arguing out of one side of its mouth
that it needs the FISA law amended, at the same time
it's completely and secretly ignoring it for years and
saying that FISA is unconstitutional now, once its
crimes are reported in the public. And so it's very
important that we're having these discussions on this
program. It's very important that people understand
the full scope of the power that the administration is
claiming.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think people can do? If
the parties aren't doing it, the elected leaders.

BEN WIZNER: You know, this is a moment of serious
accountability for the democracy. And people need to
demand it, and not just demand it by replacing people
in Congress, but making clear to the people who are in
Congress right now that if they don't rein in the
abuses of power in this administration, they'll be
gone.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, we asked the Pentagon to join us on
this program, and we weren't able to get anyone on.
The Pentagon did say they shouldn't have added peace
groups to the Talon database.

BEN WIZNER: Well, I’m not sure they said it that
clearly. I think, you know, the Pentagon has asked for
audits of these databases. But I’ve looked at the
documents that have been released under the FOIA so
far, and I haven't seen a document where the Pentagon
says straight out that it's improper to have antiwar
protest activity in a database. I do agree that in
contrast to, say, the F.B.I., there has been a
willingness on the part of the Pentagon take a look at
this. And I can assure you that there are people in
the military who are very, very uncomfortable with the
military being seen as another arm of this
administration's political agenda.

AMY GOODMAN: Last question to Dixon Osburne of the
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. When you learn
you're being spied on, you how does it affect your
work and your group, the servicemembers who work with
you?

DIXON OSBURNE: It affects us in at least two ways.
First, the majority of Americans oppose “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell.” And they see that the federal government
is now spying on them and keeping personal records on
them if they are trying to protest “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell,” and that that change in government policy has a
very chilling effect on their freedom of speech.
Secondly, at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, we
are also a legal services organization, and to the
extent that the government is spying on us, it really
threatens attorney-client confidentiality. So we're
very concerned for our clients if the government is
engaged in as broad a domestic spying program as is
suggested by these documents.

AMY GOODMAN: And the kind of cases you represent?

DIXON OSBURNE: We assist servicemembers who were hurt
by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” These are individuals
that, if it is known that they are gay, lesbian or
bisexual, they will lose their career in the armed
forces. So if the government is keeping a database on
the individuals who might be our clients – and we
don't have evidence of that right now -- it would be
enormously chilling and would be a violation of
additional fundamental constitutional rights to an
attorney.

AMY GOODMAN: Dixon Osburne, I want to thank you for
being with us, co-founder and Executive Director of
the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, joining from
us a very wet Washington, D.C. And Ben Wizner, thanks
for joining us here in New York with the American
Civil Liberties Union. 

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