Who's watching the watchers? or From my paranoia file

My story on government surveillance of political protest from In These Times

Canaries in the Data Mines
by Nan Levinson
posted 1/5/12

 
"We’re going to have a little chat,” the plain-clothed officer said to Susan Barney as he fastened handcuffs around her wrists and led her from the cell at the Boston police station, where she was being held with three other political activists. It was January 2009, and they had been arrested after refusing to move from the lobby of the building that houses the Israeli consulate while taking part in a “die-in” to protest Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

This is odd, Barney thought. She had been arrested for civil disobedience several times and never before had the police wanted to chat.

Barney was led to a small room where the officer joined three other men around a table. They introduced themselves–she remembers someone from the Boston Police Department (BPD) and another from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)–and then began questioning her about her political activities and associations. Barney, schooled in civil disobedience and keenly aware of her rights, turned her back to the table and refused to answer, but not before one of her interrogators said, “I’m sure you recognize us. We come to all your protests.” She didn’t recognize them at the time, but now reports that two of them have shown up regularly at subsequent protests, including Occupy Boston.

The Boston police had not been masking their surveillance of political actions; sometimes they were literally in the face of the protesters with their cameras. Nor was it surprising that the police were feeding information to BRIC, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, one of 72 state and urban “fusion centers” set up a few years after 9/11 to encourage intelligence sharing among law enforcement agencies. But the more Barney and her fellow activists that day–Ridgely Fuller, Richard Hess and Patrick Keaney–thought about it, the more they wondered what happened to those reports of what they considered their constitutionally protected right to dissent. 
continued at:http://inthesetimes.com/article/12427/canaries_in_the_data_mines

 

not even a thousand?

WashPo's Dana Priest has once again done excellent work on digging into the spook world, including the tidbit that Homeland Security doesn't even know how much it's spent on state fusion centers, which were set up to prevent terrorists from slipping through the intelligence cracks (apparently large enough to drive a jet through).  What can be counted, kind of, are the government organizations at all levels which have been created, or shifted, to do counterterrorism work, since 9/11: 935.  "At least," says the article.

In freedom's way

I’ve been sending out Freedom of Information Requests for the past 18 months to find out how much and what kind of information the government is keeping on Iraq Veterans Against the War.  Having come of age in the Vietnam era, I assume surveillance, if only  as a matter of course.  I haven’t gotten much back, but I’ve learned a few things so far:

- Everything seems to be going through Homeland Security.  That’s where my requests to the Army, FBI, and Secret Service ended up or got cleared (or not) for release. 

- Govt agencies don’t give up much.  What I’ve gotten usually consists of multiple blacked-out pages – redacted is the official term – with one legible paragraph or a reprint of a news article.  I imagine some poor slob sitting in a tiny, windowless room, fingers permanently stained with black Magic Marker from scratching over line after line of type.  Talk about death of the soul.  But said poor slob is very good; I can’t read what’s been blacked out, even when I hold it up to the light. 

- It takes a long time.  Agencies are supposed to reply within 20 work days and they usually do send a letter telling you they're working on it within that time frame.  It takes a lot longer to get the info, however.  Then there's my request as a journalist for a fee waiver.  DHS denied it in July 2009.  I appealed a month later.  After I emailed them in Feb. 2010, asking for an update, I was informed that they take these things in the order received and I was #497 out of 551 appeals.  I’m still waiting.

- The most material came from what’s known as a fusion center in Maryland.  Fusion centers aren’t physical places; they’re systems for sharing information among law enforcement agencies which were put in place post 9/11, and they’re nigh unto impossible to crack.  My break came when someone put me in touch with a U.S. attorney, who, I think, wanted to prove to me that he really was a friend of the First Amendment.  I sent him a FOIA request and got back a fat packet, including a 42-page compilation of intelligence reports.  It was all redacted, except for a reprint of a WashPo story about an upcoming antiwar march (2 pages).

- Which brings me to perhaps the only surprise I’ve found: It’s possible that Homeland Security has a sense of humor.  The 42 pager, titled, Virtual Roll Call, features on its cover the quotation, “We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know.”  That's attributed to Unknown.