News
2005-12-17
U.S. military
appears to be spying on "don't ask, don't tell"
protests
A secret Pentagon
document shows that the U.S. military has been spying
on what they call "suspicious
A secret Pentagon
document shows that the U.S. military has been spying
on what they call "suspicious" civilian
meetings—including protests over "don't ask,
don't tell" held at various college campuses across
the country.
NBC News was able to obtain only eight
pages of the 400-page report, but that small portion
showed that Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April
protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz; State
University of New York at Albany; and William Patterson
College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was
also listed, along with the law school's gay advocacy
group OUTlaw, and was classified as "possibly violent."
All of these protests were against the
military's policy excluding gay personnel as well
as against the presence of military recruiters on
campus. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says the
Pentagon needs to explain why "don't ask, don't tell"
protesters are considered a threat.
SLDN communications director Steve Ralls called
the surveillance a dangerous threat. "The military has
a long history of spying into the personal lives of
their service members, including gay and lesbian
service members, but they crossed yet another line, and an
inappropriate one at that, when they began spying on
private citizens," he said.
The database indicates that the Pentagon has
been collecting information about protesters and their
vehicles, looking for what they call a "significant
connection" between incidents. Of the four "don't ask,
don't tell" protests listed, only one—the University
of California, Santa Cruz, where students staged a "gay
kissing" demonstration—is classified as a
"credible" threat. (Aaron McQuade, Sirius OutQ News)
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