Is the Pentagon spying on you?

Pretty interesting blog at the WashingtonPost today by national security expert William Arkin.

An NBC Nightly News piece yesterday on domestic spying by the military featured yours truly discussing an intelligence database of 1,519 “suspicious incidents” that covers the period July 2004-May 2005. 

The database — which I obtained from a military source — is a rare look inside the actual work of the Defense Department conducting counter-terrorism and “force protection” missions inside the United States.  Building on the NBC story, what does the database actually show?

Now check out some of these hardcore terrorist threats:

In last night’s report, NBC focused on one such report, the monitoring of an anti-war Quaker meeting in Lake Worth, Florida by the Army’s 902nd Military Intelligence Group (that, according to the database). The database categorizes the meeting, which was to plan a protest at a military recruitment station, as a “threat.”

Or

August 2004, Atlanta, Georgia, a Navy enlisted man is arrested for driving under the influence by the Cobb County Police Department “and upon search of vehicle, discovered a picture of Usama bin Laden displayed as a screensaver on E-4’s cellular telephone.”

Link here.

The fear of real or perceived outside threats has historically been the justification for the biggest assaults on civil liberties.

Be vigilant.

Alex Eckelberry