Unbelievable

For those who choose to think that THEY are not being spied upon by the Bush Administration -- and who CHOOSE to think that no privacy rights are being violated by Bush avoiding the FISA courts and having the NSC listen in on phone calls, I give you this example of how the NSC Operates, via RAW STORY:

The National Security Agency has been spying on a Baltimore anti-war group, according to documents released during litigation, going so far as to document the inflating of protesters' balloons, and intended to deploy units trained to detect weapons of mass destruction, RAW STORY has learned.

According to the documents, the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace group, has been monitored by the NSA working with the Baltimore Intelligence Unit of the Baltimore City Police Department.

Quick, other than Nixon, tell me the last dangerous Quaker you know?

The Baltimore Pledge of Resistance is part of the national Iraq Pledge of Resistance, which works with the Baltimore Emergency Response Network and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) -- part of a national group committed to nonviolent civil resistance to stop the war in Iraq. The Pledge lobbies Maryland congressmembers via letters, phone calls, faxes, emails and face-to-face meetings; members of the group are periodically arrested for peaceable protests.

Documents turned over by the NSA indicate that the group was closely monitored. In one instance, the agency filed reports approximately every 15 minutes from 9:30 AM to 3:18 PM on the day of a demonstration at the National Vigilance Airplane Memorial on the NSA Campus in Maryland.

According to an NSA email dated July 4, 2004, the agency collected license numbers and descriptions and the number of people in each car and filed a report about them gathering in a church parking lot for the demonstration. NSA agents also logged their travel to the demonstration, including stopping as a gas station along the way. A canine dog unit was used to search a minivan when it was stopped on the way to the demonstration - nothing was found.

NSA officials even reported on the balloons being inflated for the demonstration and the content of their signs.

An entry made at 1300 hours on July 4. reads, "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 Neither, Will Ultimately Lose Both.'"

Un-fucking-believable.

For those of you saying, well it's just Raw Story, here are the documents!

Hey, Judge Alito, this okay with you?

This is snooping around, monitoring, and violating the privacy expectations of a non-violent group with no connections to any dangerous group whatsoever -- yet they were spied upon.

And more than just a violation of their privacy rights, more than just acting against them in violation of Free Speech rights -- what a fucking waste of resources and manpower.

And Bush expects us to believe that the NSC is only listening in on a few phone calls without warrants.

To quote a great American:

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!


Found via Steve Gilliard.