I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

Matt Welch | November 28, 2005

The U.S. military is spying on us, and wants the "legal authority" to do more of it:

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence.

Whole ugliness here. In the November issue, I wrote a brief bit about the Pentagon straining at the leash of Posse Comitatus.

Comments

Viking Moose|11.28.05 @ 2:45PM|#

80s music reference...

now "i can see there is something going on" is gonna be in my head. and golden earring's "twilight zone" (although i'm a sucker for "radar love")

in the western burbs (chicagoland) last week there was an accident with commuter rail, where basically people were gambling with the railroad tracks and gridlocking - some got hurt. sad.

and now we hear today "there was a homeland security video of the accident that has been released to NTSB investigators". (WBBM 8am radio news).

the phrase "homeland security video" getting "released" sent a monday morning chill up and down this citizen's spine.

Baylen Linnekin|11.28.05 @ 3:06PM|#

Rockwell (featuring Michael Jackson). Great tune.

|11.28.05 @ 3:06PM|#

"...as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence."

I wonder if the standards and checks for said deeming will be as stringent as they are for the PATRIOT Act's information gathering tools. *shiver*

I wonder who'd be doing the deeming. Will it be a judge? Or will they just bypass the judge and let field supervisors make the call, like the PATRIOT Act provides for?

|11.28.05 @ 3:12PM|#

Wow that's annoying.

|11.28.05 @ 3:19PM|#

Hey, it's Time Cube guy! That must make us the educated stupid.

H&R editors, as you yank posts with multiple links, maybe you could do the same with posts containing more than 5 million words, or more than two exclamation points per paragraph.

|11.28.05 @ 3:21PM|#

Wow, that reads like a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap.

Viking Moose|11.28.05 @ 3:22PM|#

what the fuck?

behold the underminer!!!!!

der depp schl�gt zu...

|11.28.05 @ 3:24PM|#

Well, zach and poco nailed it.

Good post, Matt.

|11.28.05 @ 3:31PM|#

One thing that William forgot to point out was that 76% of Douglas Macauther's body was covered by a birthmark.

gaius marius|11.28.05 @ 3:40PM|#

the phrase "homeland security video" getting "released" sent a monday morning chill up and down this citizen's spine.

it begs the question, mr moose: why is big brother watching elmwood park? :)

|11.28.05 @ 3:49PM|#

It's happening. We're losing our liberty. Now, only a concerted effort can turn the tide back.

|11.28.05 @ 3:50PM|#

Golly, was that the William H.Depperman?

|11.28.05 @ 3:54PM|#

The resources expended to enable the bandwidth consumed by William H. Depperman's post(s) will kill 2 million trees per day.

|11.28.05 @ 3:54PM|#

Not only is the 3:12 comment bitchin off topic, it's ridiculous.

|11.28.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Of course I meant Depperman's 3:12 comment, not zach's.

|11.28.05 @ 4:00PM|#

800 trillion electrons just had to sacrifice their intrinsic angular momentum to distribute William H. Depperman's posts. He should be forced to repay that, from his own electrons.

taktix|11.28.05 @ 4:00PM|#

I actually tried to read it for a minute...

ZZZzzz

Unfortunately, this looks to me like a typical environmentalist argument: Just keep screaming until the other side gives up...

|11.28.05 @ 4:26PM|#

Dr. Bronner was far more coherent than that. And he was a capitalist.

|11.28.05 @ 4:27PM|#

In regard to the subject at hand, Dennis Miller once lamented that our national anthem is no longer the Star Spangled Banner, but rather "Every Breath You Take".

|11.28.05 @ 5:02PM|#

And about the DOD's "expanding" role in domestic affairs (thanks for reminding me, thoreau):

1) I strongly recommend this article [reg req., username: ericthebee pw: eric123] by a friend's father in a small Texas newspaper, written shortly after Katrina when people were calling on the military to handle disaster management. On the face, the subjects are different, but Milam outlines some good reasons why the DOD should be focused on fighting and winning wars instead of disaster relief. Substitute "domestic intelligence" for "disaster relief" and parts of it are worth considering here. [The paper doesn't note it, but Milam was in the Army for decades and is a West Point grad, FWIW.]

2) In the article, Milam also points to an award-winning National Defense University/National War College paper titled, The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 written by Lt. Col. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. (USAF) (pdf). I won't try to summarize it here, but it focuses on the "relaxation" of American views toward the military, and their gradual expansion into domestic law enforcement. Dunlap goes after the war on drugs as one of his first targets, as one of the ways that had already come to involve the military and one of the ways the military might further slide into domestic affairs.

|11.28.05 @ 5:19PM|#

Of course I meant Depperman's 3:12 comment, not zach's.

Well technically, mine was also off-topic, only right. And much more succinct.

|11.28.05 @ 6:18PM|#

Thanks, Mr. Depperman, for moving this site one step closer to a mandatory-registration requirement - I'm sure we all deeply appreciate that. [/sarcasm]

|11.28.05 @ 6:49PM|#

It takes balls the size of watermelons, to post nine million words' worth of rambling, boring, off-topic crap into a thread and think that anybody's going to read it.

|11.28.05 @ 7:02PM|#

William H Dupperman reminds me of my enviromentalist alcohalic aunt.Not that I think anyone could type that many words plastered but similar thought patterns anyway.

Viking Moose|11.28.05 @ 8:17PM|#

Hey Taktix:

how true. have you met our residential one here?

he does that with meterology and economics. so he gets both of us.

excellent piece, by the way, on " Amature Meteorologists". Expand it: when the Rather memo came out, everybody was an expert on movable type. etc. etc. etc.

When the staged "hypertension study" came out in early 2003, people were all of a sudden "experts" on who gets a diuretic, who gets an ACE, etc., too.

kudos. two snaps. a circle. and this browns fan says, in all sincerety: "do the AFC north proud tonight". (since all my revenge against pittsburgh fans was taken out in the pool against Shadyside and Kiski) grin