Pentagon Spied on Sacramento Area Activists 

by Dan Bacher 

The ground-breaking release of nine reports by Pentagon’s Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) surveillance program on November 21 reveals a chilling web of surveillance by federal counter terrorism agencies directed against peace and social justice activists engaged in anti-war and counter-recruiting work, including George Main, president of the Veterans for Peace Sacramento chapter.

Pentagon released the reports under a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The first report targeted the protest at the Sacramento Military Processing Station (MEPS) on November 11, 2004 by Veterans for Peace and other local peace organizations. 

In response to the revelations of the Pentagon spy files, the ACLU called on Congress to investigate the widespread surveillance of political and religious groups by the Defense Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The TALON documents are the latest in a series of domestic spying scandals that include Secret wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the California National Guard's spying on Grandmothers for Peace. Activists and civil liberties attorneys have criticized the Bush administration for inaugurating a new of McCarthyism, as evidenced by the latest documents. 

“There is increasing evidence that the Pentagon improperly targeted innocent Americans for surveillance,” said Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney. “These documents send a chilling message that if you oppose the war, the military is watching you. That is simply un-American.”

Main blasted the surveillance of him and other anti war activists disclosed by the release of the documents – and noted that reading the document has only recommitted him to working harder against the Iraq war, military recruitment and domestic spying.

“What kind of father and what kind of patriot would accept an America for his children that enjoys less freedom?” emphasized Main. “Every GI sacrificed in Iraq pledged fealty to the Constitution and its guarantees of liberty.  What veteran would dishonor their memory by meekly cowering in a free speech pen?”  

The documents released consist of nine reports from the Pentagon’s (TALON) database that describe as “threats” several planned demonstrations at military recruitment stations, including sites on college campuses, apparently considering domestic activists as some sort of “terrorist threat” to the country, according to the ACLU.

The first report focuses on the planned protest at the Sacramento Military Entrance Processing Station by “a Sacramento chapter of a US domestic group,” Veterans for Peace. “This specific group is deeply into ‘counter-recruiting,’” and views the station “as their last chance to influence a decision to enlist,” according to the report.

The San Francisco Joint Terrorism Task Force advised the Commanders of the Sacramento and San Jose stations of the protests. “It appears this protest will most likely be peaceful, but some type of vandalism is always a possibility,” the report ominously noted.

Main is concerned that his personal emails were monitored to obtain some of the material in the report, although the rest of the information was apparently obtained through press releases about the event distributed openly to the media and posted on activist websites.

The specific quote listed in the report, “The promoter of this event further states that their 65 MEPS stations and ‘maybe one is located near you’,” really bothered Main.

“This information was not from a press release, but could have only been obtained by intercepting an email that I sent out to people on the Veterans for Peace list a week before the protest on November 5, 2004,” he said. “Also, the quote made it sound like an implied threat – it makes me sound like a terrorist.”

“This is absolutely outrageous,” said Main, emphasizing that he believed his cell phone and home phone were tapped. “The echo delay on my cell phone was so bad that you would make the statement, listen for the statement being echoed back, and only then could talk again or respond. I couldn’t even hold a conversation with my wife. There was an 8 second delay all of the way until this summer.” 

Main’s idea for the demonstration came about after the election of 2004, when local activists were discouraged that another presidential election had been stolen by the Bush regime. “I knew that people were devastated that we had been robbed again in the election,” said Main, “so I put out an email to have a demonstration in front of MEPS on Veterans Day.”

On the wettest November 11 ever, over 65 demonstrators turned out - and federal law enforcement agencies were watching the whole time.

Ironically, Main himself worked in army counter-intelligence for 7 years during the Vietnam War, so he had inside knowledge about the methods and procedures used by military in conducting military surveillance.

“The 902 Military Counter intelligence Group that monitored us is based out of Fort Meade and is part of the of the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” he said. “What’s amazing is that that the report indicates that it was the 110th report that day, so this group was very busy.”

 “This shouldn’t be happening,” said Main. “It is a touch ironic that I was in the U.S. Army Security Agency (USASA), whose chain of command went to the NSA. My first assignment was to monitor allies everywhere worldwide. Our motto was 'In God we trust.  All others we monitor.'"

When Main objected to doing the surveillance and then approached his commander, his commander told him to “get back to work.” 

Another report in the documents dated April 8, 2005 lists planned protests by Veterans for Peace at nine different universities across the country. The source of the information, described as an "active duty Army officer," states that “Veterans for Peace is a peaceful organization, but there is potential future protest could become violent. Another report, dated April 22, 2005, attempts to justify surveillance of Veterans for Peace by pointing to an altercation between a solider and an individual at a university anti-war rally in New Orleans.
  
“It is appalling that the Pentagon would label peace activists-including those of us who put our lives at risk defending this country-as potential threats,” said Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director of Veterans for Peace. “The federal government should not be wasting valuable resources gathering files on peaceful protesters who disagree with the Bush administration’s policies.”  

The documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the Pentagon was secretly conducting surveillance of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups, including Quakers and student groups.

After public outcry, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England announced in January that intelligence personnel would receive “refresher training on the policies for collection, retention, dissemination and use of information related to U.S. persons.”

However, in spite of the release of the incriminating documents, the Pentagon denied that it is engaged in domestic spying. "The U.S. military is not spying on U.S. citizens," said Maj. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, as quoted in Dorothy Korber's article in the Sacramento Bee on November 22. "That data should never have been in the database in the first place."

"So far Congress has failed to investigate how the Pentagon collected the information on innocent Americans, and which other agencies received these reports," according to the ACLU. "In addition, Congress has yet to act on the hundreds of FBI documents previously obtained by the ACLU that show widespread surveillance by Joint Terrorism Task Forces of peace activists, religious groups, environmental groups and animal rights activists."  

When the new Democratic majority takes power in the Senate and House of Representatives this January, people concerned about our civil rights and liberties must put massive pressure on them to investigate the Pentagon Spygate scandal and other wholesale abuses of our first amendment rights!

The TALON reports are online at: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/27459lgl20061121.html
More information on government surveillance of innocent Americans, including FBI documents, is online at: http://www.aclu