ACLU documents: Pentagon kept tabs on Broward antiwar group
Miami Herald Staff Report
Document Papers filed by the ACLU (.pdf)
Audio Interview with Howard Simon, executive director of the
ACLU of Florida
The Pentagon kept tabs on nonviolent protesters of the Iraq
war -- including a Broward County group that planned a protest
for the annual Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show -- by collecting
information and storing it in a military antiterrorism database,
according to documents released today by the American Civil
Liberties Union.
The documents, which the ACLU posted today at its website,
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/index.html,
were obtained from the Department of Defense under the federal
Freedom of Information Act, the civil-liberties group said.
The documents indicate that the Miami-Dade Police Department
sent information to the Pentagon in April 2005, reporting on a
planned protest by the Broward Anti-War Coalition.
''The Broward Anti-War Coalition (BAWC), with support from
other local groups . . . is planning to conduct a large-scale
protest at the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show,'' says the
report, dated April 12, 2005. One section of the document says,
``Incident type: suspicious activities/incidents.''
'BAWC plans to counter military recruitment and the `pro-war'
message with guerrilla theater and other forms of subversive
propaganda,'' the report says.
The report was made part of the Department of Defense's Threat
and Local Observation Notice database, or TALON, the ACLU said.
''It is clear that many people have become alarmed at how the
Bush Administration has run roughshod over the Constitution in
its response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11,'' said Howard
Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, in a news
release. ``The ACLU plays a vital role in challenging many of
these excesses, including the warrantless spying on Americans.''
The ACLU said that the documents it had obtained from the
Pentagon show that the TALON database, which was intended to
track groups or individuals with links to terrorism, was being
used to store information on antiwar protesters gleaned by the
Department of Homeland Security, local police departments and the
FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
Representatives of the Miami-Dade Police Department could not
be reached for immediate comment. Rather than comment
immediately, the Pentagon asked that questions be submitted in
writing.
The ACLU's news release cites other examples of information
gathering on antiwar groups from around the country:
• One document, labeled ''potential terrorist
activity,'' lists events such as a ''Stop the War NOW!'' rally in
Akron, Ohio on March 19, 2005 by the American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC). The source of the report notes that the rally
''will have a March and Reading of Names of War Dead'' and that
marchers would pass a military recruitment station and the local
FBI office along the way.
• Other documents contain information on a series of
protests mistakenly identified as taking place in Springfield,
Ill., when they really occurred in Springfield, Mass.
• In a document listing upcoming Atlanta area
protests by the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, the Pentagon
-- citing the Department of Homeland Security as its source --
states that the Students for Peace and Justice network poses a
threat to DOD personnel.
To support that claim, the TALON report cites previous acts of
civil disobedience in California and Texas, including sit-ins,
disruptions at recruitment offices and street theater. Describing
one protest in Austin, Texas, the document notes: 'The protesters
blocked the entrance to the recruitment office with two coffins,
one draped with an American flag and the other covered with an
Iraqi flag, taped posters on the window of the office and
chanted, `No more war and occupation. You don't have to die for
an education.' ''
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