Spies in our midst

Outraged to learn that government agents have been spying on American anti-war demonstrators, Pasadena Congressman Adam Schiff has joined a chorus of lawmakers and activists calling for an investigation into potential civil liberties abuses by Bush administration officials.

On Thursday, NBC News reported that the network had obtained a secret, 400-page Defense Department document that detailed monitoring of some 1,500 anti-war groups or events, many of them described as threats to national security.

Such threats included email and Internet message board communications, student protests against military recruitment, a postcard with an anti-war message and a Hollywood peace rally.

Also that day, The New York Times reported that President Bush had ordered agents to wiretap overseas telephone calls by American citizens without obtaining court clearance as required by federal law. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) made it illegal to spy on American citizens within the United States without court approval.

“This is a clarion call to Congress to do the kind of oversight it has neglected over the past four years,” Schiff, a Democrat who supports a congressional investigation of domestic spying activities, told the Weekly in a phone interview from the floor of the House of Representatives.

While he described domestic spying as “disturbing on many levels,” Schiff is no dove when it comes to the war in Iraq or homeland security operations. Like many Democrats, Schiff was criticized by many liberals for his support of the war and for co-sponsoring the USA PATRIOT Act.

After reports of government spying broke last week, senators voted not to renew provisions of the act that are set to expire at the start of next year, a move joined by four senate Republicans. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter has, like Schiff, called for hearings on at-home surveillance.

Though many believe the president may have gone too far in trampling civil liberties, Bush instead has scolded the media for outing his domestic spying activities.

“It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy,” he said at a press conference Monday.

But just who, exactly, is the enemy?

Waters: ‘suspicious of my government’

According to pages from the surveillance database released by NBC, agents with the secretive Defense Department agency Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) monitored a March 2004 anti-war protest at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

The protest, sponsored by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, was led by Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic and Los Angeles Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Waters, an outspoken Bush critic, was furious at the idea her own government might be spying on her.

“While I am suspicious of my government and this administration, many innocent Americans would never dream their government would be spying on them, or their elected officials,” said Waters, also calling for a congressional investigation. “This is why it’s so important to always fight very hard to maintain your constitutional rights.”

Waters told the Weekly that she has suspected government spying, if only because she felt she could not trust Bush.

“The Bush administration has used 9/11 to undermine the laws that protect privacy and civil liberties, and tell Americans they should give those rights up in the name of fighting terrorism, and describe terrorism they way the want to. Their [modus operandi] is consistent. They don’t mind saying or doing anything to stay in control,” she said.

Kovic: ‘against everythingwe believe in’

Kovic, a permanently disabled Vietnam War veteran and author of the best-selling “Born on the Fourth of July,” echoed Waters' feelings while leading a rally of a few hundred anti-war demonstrators Saturday evening at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

“This is wrong and it is against everything we believe in as Americans. What has happened is outrageous and is a direct violation of our freedoms and our constitutional rights,” said Kovic, a 59-year-old Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient paralyzed below the waist. The Oliver Stone rendition of Kovic’s book has been airing this week on the AMC movie channel.

“It’s very reminiscent of the Vietnam War era. I remember the heavy surveillance. I remember the phones being tapped. I remember the undercover agents that were placed in our organizations. It was an attack on our civil liberties back then, and without question it’s an attack on our constitutional rights today,” he said.

Preston Wood, an ANSWER organizer of the monitored Hollywood and Vine demonstration, said domestic surveillance points up weaknesses within the administration. “It means they fear the people of this country,” he said. “They are vulnerable and losing support.”

Blase Bonpane, who with his wife Theresa heads the LA-based peace group Office of the Americas, recalled that government agents kept more than 3,000 pages of information on his political activity during the Vietnam War. They attended the March 2004 demonstration, as well as Saturday’s protest.

“We’ve been through it all,” said Theresa Bonpane, “but I see hope in that a little bit of the truth is coming out.”

Schiff: ‘of the greatest concern’

Despite past political differences between Schiff or other more moderate Democrats and the far left, revelations of domestic spying seem to have further united opposition to the Bush administration.

While he did co-sponsor PATRIOT Act legislation, albeit a different version than the existing law, Schiff has also proved quick to defend liberties.

On Thursday, Schiff sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld demanding that he turn over records of domestic spying and those who authorized it.

Just one week earlier, Schiff called for a federal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service following threats by that agency to revoke the tax-exempt status of Pasadena’s All Saints Church based on an anti-war sermon by Rector Emeritus George Regas. That request to US Controller General David Walker was co-sponsored by Republican Congressmen Walter Jones and Joseph Pitts.

“I was very concerned with reports that the government or the military was eavesdropping on peace activist meetings, labeling them a threat to national security and coming quickly on the heels of the IRS investigation of All Saints. It raises serious questions about what is going on when we threaten churches for talking about war and peace, when we have government agents sitting in on Quaker meetings,” he said.

A small Quaker peace group in Florida was named as a national security threat in the documents obtained by NBC.
While it appears domestic spying revelations helped shape defeat of the PATRIOT Act in the Senate, Schiff pointed out that spying abuses are even outside the loosened restraints that law provides.

“It’s in the areas that are not being debated by Congress, that are not subject to sunset, where at this moment is of the greatest concern,” said Schiff. “That they tabulated this data is not only offensive from a civil liberties and privacy point of view, it’s also spending resources in areas that are not improving our security when there is a dramatic need to keep our country safe.”

No stopping now

Of the spying information that has been released by NBC, most relates to groups or demonstrations who take aim at military recruiters.

Listed among potential threats are a Nov. 10, 2004, protest against a “Sacramento Military Entrance Processing Station,” April anti-recruitment demonstrations at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and rallies outside a San Diego naval station and San Francisco recruiting station.

South Pasadena’s Arlene Inouye, a high school teacher in Los Angeles and founder of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, was stunned by the amount of time apparently spent spying on counter-recruitment efforts.

“It’s really an insult to the peace community and anyone working for our youth. It’s a contradiction. They are supposedly going after terrorists threatening democracy, and we’re totally promoting democracy and free speech. We’re for our kids having a good education so they can make good choices in life,” she said.

Inouye is a Japanese American whose grandfather, a downtown Los Angeles store owner, was placed in an internment camp during World War II. “It’s the same old feeling,” she said of government spying.

Said Kovic, “I served two tours of duty and gave three quarters of my body as a Marine in Vietnam. I am outraged that this government would try to stop me or intimidate me in any way from exercising my constitutional right in opposing this war.

“This is a tactic to intimidate the citizens of this country, to frighten them, to keep them from raising their voices — a way to silence dissent and shut us down, to stop this movement which is growing stronger every day. This movement will not be stopped. We will not be silenced,” Kovic said.