US Military to Expand Domestic Surveillance

The US military has a long and honorable history of staying out of domestic squabbles (with the possible exception of the Southern War of Treason, commonly called the Civil War). While other republics in the hemisphere have succumbed to military coups d’ etat, America’s armed forces have never questioned the concept of civilian control of the military. Unfortunately, that comfortable position is threatened, not by a huge and might blow against freedom (for which the Pentagon wouldn’t stand) but rather by a slow erosion of limits on military intelligence. The military’s gathering of intelligence for the War on Terror may now target private US citizens.

The argument in favor of having the Department of Defense gather information domestically, or rather spy on citizens, is to protect military assets in the US. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Conway, a spokesman for the Pentagon, told the Washington Post “In the age of terrorism, the US military and its facilities are targets, and we have to be prepared within our authorities to defend them before something happens.” This cannot be disputed; after all, the Pentagon itself was hit on September 11, 2001.

However, the difficulty arises when the practicalities of such protection come into view. Currently, the Pentagon has an agency within it called the Counterintelligence Field Activity [CIFA]. It was established three years ago, a few months after the Al Qaeda attacks. According to the directive creating it, “The mission of the DoD CIFA is to develop and manage DoD Counterintelligence (CI) programs and functions that support the protection of the Department, including CI support to protect DoD personnel, resources, critical information, research and development programs, technology, critical infrastructure, economic security, and US interests, against foreign influence and manipulation, as well as to detect and neutralize espionage against the Department.” Yet that isn’t enough apparently. The White House, according to the Washington Post wants to give CIFA the “authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is pressing for an exception to the Privacy Act, which would let the FBI share information related to foreign intelligence with the CIA, DIA and the rest of the alphabet soup of US intelligence. Perhaps, this is justified. Maybe such sharing of information would have protected the five-sided building and the twin towers on that September morning.

Yet, surely the American people are entitled to a debate about such things before the military gets a dose of domestic power. As Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said recently, “We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing.” Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the exception to the Privacy Act, “removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies.” She told the Post the Pentagon's “intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate.” For four years, America has needed a debate about freedom and security, and all it has had is sound bites and yellow ribbon car magnets. The Republic deserves better from its Congress.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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