Pentagon’s domestic spying operations target opponents of Iraq war

The White House is, according to a November 27 report in the Washington Post, considering a proposal by a presidential commission on intelligence established by President Bush that would empower a recently formed Pentagon intelligence agency to “carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.” The panel asserted that this step could be taken by presidential order and Pentagon directive without congressional authorization.

The proposal would effectively scuttle the 1878 Posse Comitatus law that bars the military, with few exceptions, from carrying out domestic policing operations. It is only one link in a chain of already existing operations and pending measures that add up to a vast expansion of the domestic role of the military and the creation of a “Big Brother”-style apparatus for government spying and political repression.

That the military is using the threat of terrorist attacks as a pretense to spy on opponents of the war was documented in a segment broadcast Tuesday on the NBC Nightly News program. NBC investigative correspondent Lisa Myers reported that NBC News had obtained a secret 400-page Defense Department document listing more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent ten-month period.

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