Raging (Grannies), Full Obs.
This one went under my radar, but on June 26, the San Jose Mercury News revealed the following:
Three decades after aggressive military spying on Americans created a national furor, California's National Guard has quietly set up a special intelligence unit that has been given "broad authority" to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats, the Mercury News has learned.
Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project is part of an expanding nationwide effort to better integrate military intelligence into global anti-terrorism initiatives.
Although Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, top National Guard officials have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.
The protest in question was led by Gold Star Families for Peace, Raging Grannies and CodePink. Follow-up here, data-destroying here.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
"I know that Cyrus is just a loyal, patriotic American veteran working on a documentary."
Yes, but he is far removed from being a Pioneer of the Bush reelection campaign.
I.S.K.M.I.F.?
Man, the guy who comes up with anagrams for the military better get back from vacation soon.
Sounds disturbing. Does anybody know how to access these stories without registering for the Mercury News?
The tried and true http://www.bugmenot.com should generate a password. Cut & paste the url, and go from there.
Better yet, use Firefox's BugMeNot extension - right click and go!
Jason-thanks for the heads-up on the exension. Firefox is truly a wonderful thing.
[unrelated to discussion - just happened to type "matt" into google (thought it was going to search the website i was on - looking for a different matt at a small company) and a list of Matts came up, and Matt Welch is the fifth Matt on Google, after Drudge and a couple of others. Congratulations.]
I don't know if "congratulations" are in order, but thanks. Take that Damon!
Apropos of nothing, Code Pink is yet another group founded by Susan Medea Benjamin. One of their members or leaders supports the Iraqi resistance: "...It wasn't clear how much she was saying she supported the insurgency itself, or merely supported their "right" to resist, but her overall message was clear: We need to be able to say we support the Iraqi resistance."
Saying that one supports the Iraqi insurgents is just as much a right as saying one supports W. That doesn't mean it's not stupid and offensive.
I didn't miss this last week. Original article at the Davis Enterprise. No registration required for either 🙂
Oh, and I've made a follow-up post on the Pentagon launching a formal investigation into the California National Guard. The Mercury-News doesn't want to let me in, so I have no idea if they've reported this or not...and don't much care. 🙂