Pentagon seeks leeway to approach citizens

[struggle4progress]

WASHINGTON - Loosening decades-old limitations, the Pentagon is asking Congress to allow its intelligence agents to go undercover when they approach Americans who may have useful national-security information, rather than identifying themselves as intelligence operatives.

The provision found in a wide-ranging intelligence bill would give the Defense Intelligence Agency new latitude to meet U.S. citizens without pulling out their DIA badges and later sending a formal notice of their rights under the landmark 1974 Privacy Act.

The regulations are a vestige of the intelligence scandals of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Defense Department was taken to task for spying on American anti-war protesters. Civil liberties advocates raise similar concerns now, worried that the powers the DIA is seeking could be abused. <snip>

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/12846795.htm

[Eric J in MN]

1. One power grab after another.

Destroying the distinction between the military and the police.

[mike_c]

2. Amerika the security state-- earn bonus points by informing...

...on your neighbors!

[shraby]

3. Isn't it enough to have a city police force,

county police force, state police force and FBI? Now they want the military force investigating people too? I hope this goes no-place.

Maybe they should start investigating where all the missing money in the defense budget went.

edited to add.

[converted_democrat]

4. These people never stop, they just grab for more, and more power. n/t

[NEOBuckeye]

5. I'd like to spy on Rumsfeld. Bet I'd find him dressed up in drag.

Masturbating to Abu Garib torture videos. Sick f*cked-up bastard that he is.

[Selteri]

6. OPf course, they aren't mentioning that they want to investigate anti-war

protestors secretly, just going to investigating anti-war advocates all over again.

[nashville_brook]

7. red'd -- this idea is double-plus good!

[struggle4progress]

18. I was sorta thinkin it was unbellyful, m'self. eom

[Historic NY]

8. Just like the KGB..........

next they will be encouraging people to spy on their neighbors.

[Oilwellian]

9. They already have

Shortly after 911, and during the formation of the new Homeland Security Dept, the govt created a video asking citizens to keep a close eye on their neighbors. Part of the video included a shot of a typical american street, every house was sporting a flag because it was the thing to do after 911, and suddenly it stops on a house that wasn't flying a flag. Under that they captioned it with "what is wrong with this picture?" Kid you not...I'm sure other DU'ers remember that video as well.

[Gronk Groks]

10. Build a better Police State !!!

Or, "If you can't trust anybody, keep your mouth shut"

I swear, if we don't throw these bastards out by '08 I'm going to emigrate before it's too late...

[OKNancy]

11. Kick

:kick:

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Just one more step on the path to turning the US into a military state

all in the name of safety and security.

Gee then why am I even less safe?

[Cookie wookie]

13. My letter to Senator Rockefeller

As ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee you represent not only the citizens of West Virginia but of the entire country. Americans are paying attention to decisions being made that undermine our civil rights,(in spite of a useless corporate controlled press), and in particular, members of Congress who support legislation that gives more power to the Pentagon. Allowing intelligence agents from the Pentagon to go undercover in the U.S. is not only dangerous to democracy, it is an anti-American stance.

There is plenty of evidence that the Bush Administration’s goal is to bring about a military/corporate overthrow of our democracy similar to what has been done in South America for decades. There is no difference between using the guise of stopping Communism and using "the war on terrorism.” At bottom is installing a government enforced by the military and funded/answerable only to big corporations.

So my question is, why are you supporting this effort?

If you wonder why Democrats can be ambivalent about the Democratic Party – it's not because as the DLC thinks, as represented by Schumer , et.al., that the party isn't moderate enough – it's because we see Democrats like yourself supporting positions that undermine the Constitutional freedoms that you are supposed to represent.

Again, what would make you support further empowering the Pentagon and taking away more of the civil rights of American citizens? I know you’re intelligent because I’ve heard you speak. Is it intimidation? Some coarsening of moral values? Sometimes we Democrats make excuses and say that being inside the beltway makes our elected Democrats especially ignorant to the overall picture. Like the pigmies in the jungle before there were few jungles, are you unable to see the forest for the trees?

There is no doubt that your current position is one of supporting greater power for the Pentagon and lessening power for American freedom. The irony is that it's not even good for you or your family’s future, if only looked at in a selfish light, as if we have no democracy you lose your rights along with the rest of us. Is it short-term gain you are after? I'd really like to know the motives behind such a political decision, but don't bother sending me a propaganda letter about supporting the global war on terrorism by selling out the freedoms of Americans, you'll waste your time and mine on a useless exercise.

[rodeodance]

14. Pentagon seeks power to gather secret intelligence in US

Also says that the House version.....did not have this provision.

Average (3 votes)
4.7 stars

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051008/pl_afp/usmilitaryintelligence_051008071518;_ylt=Au5J.LWmngQeDZNFlAbcjJas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Pentagon seeks power to gather secret intelligence in US

Sat Oct 8, 3:15 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is seeking authority to secretly collect information about US citizens and emigres, a deaprtment official told The Washington Post.

DIA General Counsel George Peirce said the agency was seeking to expand its powers to help recruit sources of intelligence information, the paper reported.



.......

The legislative proposal has been controversial on Capitol Hill and has drawn criticism from groups concerned with privacy and civil liberties, according to the report.........


But the Senate intelligence committee approved the new authority for the DIA last week and forwarded it to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which reviews sections related to the Defense Department.

[Missy M]

15. We will again be told it is for our own good to keep us secure...

and now they can collect the information secretly yet bush lectures the world about freedom and democracy. What a joke.

[HuffleClaw]

16. secret ?

as in a SECRET POLICE ? ?

[converted_democrat]

17. More like ......

Secret Military Police.....