NSA used city police as trackers - to monitor War Protestors - Memo Shows

[dutchdemocrat]

NSA used city police as trackers
Activists monitored on way to Fort Meade war protest, agency memos show
By Douglas Birch
Sun reporter

January 13, 2006

The National Security Agency used law enforcement agencies, including the Baltimore Police Department, to track members of a city anti-war group as they prepared for protests outside the sprawling Fort Meade facility, internal NSA documents show.

The target of the clandestine surveillance was the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, a group loosely affiliated with the local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, whose members include many veteran city peace activists with a history of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Under various names, the activists have staged protests at the NSA campus off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway every year since 1996.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, members of the group say, their protests have come under increasing scrutiny by federal and local law enforcement officials working on behalf of the NSA.

An internal NSA e-mail, posted on two Internet sites this week, shows how operatives with the "Baltimore Intel Unit" provided a minute-by-minute account of Pledge of Resistances' preparations for a July 3, 2004, protest at Fort Meade. An attorney for the demonstrators said he obtained the document through the discovery process from NSA.

"****UPDATE: 11:55 HRS. S/A V------- ADVISED THE PROTESTORS LEFT 4600 YORK ROAD EN ROUTE TO THE NSA CAMPUS ... S/A V----- REPORTED FIVE OR SIX PEOPLE IN A BLUE VAN WITH BLACK BALLOONS, ANTI-WAR SIGNS AND A POSSIBLE HELIUM TANK," reported an internal NSA e-mail.

Later, those shadowing the peace group reported on their arrival at the NSA's Fort Meade headquarters.

"****UPDATE: 1300 HRS. THE SOC WAS ADVISED THE PROTESTORS WERE PROCEEDING TO THE AIRPLANE MEMORIAL WITH THREE HELIUM BALLOONS ATTACHED TO A BANNER THAT STATED "THOSE WHO EXCHANGE FREEDOM FOR SECURITY DESERVE IT, NEITHER WILL ULTIMATELY LOSE BOTH," the NSA's somewhat garbled account of the event reported.

SNIP


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.nsa13jan13,1,26622,print.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

I need help with research - this is getting too big in terms of data. Jason Leopold is using the site below to work the next story - which he tells me is going to be pretty big.



http://www.thisiswiretap.com/

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. War protesters are terrorists. Actually, I would think that people who

don't openly oppose the present/temporary regime in Amerika would be more interesting to the state.

[fishwax]

2. no kidding

because someone who is plotting action against America is really going to engage in an activity like protesting the war? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Our country's enemies are sitting quietly by, and enjoying their back door victory of reduced freedoms and increased paranoia.