Why might the U.S. Department of Defense be spying on a small peace protest in Providence?
The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to answer that question and find out why the department may have gathered intelligence on Rhode Island anti-war groups. After filing the request at the beginning of February, the ACLU has yet to get a concrete answer, said Steven Brown, executive director of R.I. ACLU.
The ACLU began its investigation after NBC News revealed that the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace was referred to in the defense department's Threat and Local Observation Notice database. The department evidently took notice after the coalition held a 30-person protest in December 2004 against the deployment of a Rhode Island National Guard unit to Iraq, according to Greg Garrett, one of the protesters and a member of the Rhode Island Green Party.
The FOIA, passed in 1966, was designed to increase governmental transparency and accountability.
The TALON database was authorized in 2003 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to gather "raw information" on "suspicious incidents," according to an internal memo obtained by Newsweek.
Shaw Joseph, organizer of the Providence branch of the International Socialist Organization and a member of RICCP, reported that several National Guard employees took digital pictures of the activists during the December 2004 protest.
The FOIA request was filed on behalf of groups whose members participated in that protest, including the RICCP, the South Kingstown Justice and Peace Action Group, the Providence branch of the ISO and the state Green Party - which has one branch at the University, Brown said.
The Department of Defense declined to comment on the R.I. ACLU's FOIA request or its investigation of the RICCP.
After NBC News outlined allegations of the erroneous targeting of activist groups, the defense department admitted in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that peaceful groups were in fact erroneously added to the TALON database.
"The recent review of the TALON reporting system ... identified a small number of reports that did not meet the TALON reporting criteria. Those reports dealt with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting Department of Defense facilities or personnel," said Roger Rogalski, acting deputy undersecretary of defense at the time.
Brown said the reports are particularly concerning because they might be emblematic of other inappropriate practices undertaken by the department.
"At this point, the monitoring of the protest is the only (observation by the Department of Defense of an anti-war group in Rhode Island) we know of, but it wouldn't surprise us to know if there have been other incidents of spying," Brown said. "It's another example of the secrecy surrounding (the Bush) administration and often the secrecy surrounding its questionable activities."
The RICCP is one of the many groups around the country who were added to the defense department's list of potential threats. The 400-page document obtained by NBC contained more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" over a 10-month period.
Those involved in the peace protest said the defense department was interested in the small protest because of the government's intolerance of dissent over the war in Iraq.
"This is the action of a government and an administration that is attached to a series of deeply unpopular policies and is trying to change the attitudes to these policies through repression," Joseph said.
"The government should never be observing peaceful protesters in this way or form," Garrett said. "We have gone into this age where protest seems to be illegal, though not in actuality."
The defense department's investigation of U.S. citizens is one of several recent questionable national security programs that have been brought to the public's attention.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has looked into several environmental activist groups, such as Greenpeace International and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for their alleged connections to eco-terrorism, according to evidence the ACLU's national chapter obtained in December 2005 through a different FOIA request.
Earlier this year, the New York Times revealed the existence of a secret wiretapping program sanctioned by the president and run by the National Security Agency to intercept international calls made by American citizens without a warrant.
Though Brown said the ACLU is relying on its FOIA request to unearth any information collected by the defense department on local activist groups, Scott Hodes, a privacy law attorney in Washington, D.C., said the FOIA request will probably be the first of multiple steps taken by the ACLU to gather information. After obtaining responses from the different agencies within the executive branch, the ACLU will probably have to file a lawsuit to obtain all of the relevant information its leaders seek, according to Hodes.
"(The defense department) may not find everything because they are not always searching hard or effectively," Hodes said, adding "they may simply not want to release it all and use a FOIA exemption."
The Rhode Island ACLU also contacted Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who is known for his criticism of the Iraq war, to help investigate the surveillance of Rhode Island groups opposing the war, Brown said.
"I remain concerned with reports that the Department of Defense has tracked numerous groups opposed to the war in Iraq," Reed wrote in a statement released to The Herald. "As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am working with my colleagues to address this matter."
Though Reed has been in contact with the R.I. ACLU, he has yet to take any legislative action.
