Private firm revealed to be spying on antiwar groups in California

The Times wrote in articles published July 1 and 2 that it had obtained 2 of approximately 60 reports, which were prepared on a daily basis since March 2006. Political activities reviewed in the reports include an animal rights rally in San Francisco, a Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom gathering at a courthouse in Santa Barbara in support of an antiwar protester facing federal trespassing charges, and an antiwar demonstration in Walnut Creek. The reports also contained summaries of news articles about the Iraq war, animal rights activists and terrorism.

The reports were shared among the California attorney general’s office, the Highway Patrol and the OHS through the State Terrorism Threat Assessment Center, an organization the Times referred to as an “anti-terrorism partnership.” The OHS is a state agency that works in coordination with the federal Department of Homeland Security.

News of the existence of the reports prepared by SRA International was only made public on July 1 through the Times article. According to the newspaper, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s office already knew of the monitoring at least two months ago.

The immediate response of both the state attorney general’s office and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office was to distance the state government from any implications of wrongdoing.

Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar told the Times, “When people exercise their first Amendment right to rally, march and protest, they should not have to worry that intelligence officials are watching them or their activities are in any way being painted with the terrorism brush.... Collecting information on protests has no legitimate anti-terrorism intelligence function. None. No intelligence agency has any need to maintain this kind of information.”

If the monitoring was of such concern to the attorney general, one might ask why it was that nothing was said to the public of the reports until their existence was leaked to the Times.

The governor’s communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, told the Times that Schwarzenegger had “no information and no knowledge that this was happening” and that “the governor feels that this particular information gathering is totally inappropriate and unacceptable.”

According to the Times, OHS officials maintain that such information was included only in the two reports obtained by the newspaper. Last Thursday, Schwarzenegger’s office released in a review to the media more than 80 intelligence reports prepared for the OHS in an effort to demonstrate the limited and aberrant nature of the program of state spying on protesters.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/cali-j12.shtml