Groups with names such as Raging Grannies, Gold Star Families for Peace and CodePink may not sound very threatening to our national security. Yet last month a special intelligence unit of the California National Guard was quietly tracking these groups as they prepped for an anti-war protest in front of the Capitol.
As the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday, the California National Guard has established an "Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion" program. It's a legacy of Maj. Gen. Thomas Eres, the Guard leader who was forced to retire this month. The unit's purpose, according to the Guard, is to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats.
Leaders of the California National Guard say the unit doesn't collect information on U.S. citizens. Maybe not, but it came dangerously close to crossing that line, if not charging across it, at the Mother's Day rally last month
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That's the rainy day when a few dozen Californians, including families of soldiers killed in the Iraq war, attended a rally outside the state Capitol. Three days beforehand, an aide in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office had alerted the California National Guard to the coming protest, according to the Mercury News.
The Guard sprung into action.
"Sir," one colonel wrote to his boss, Col. Jeff Davis, who oversees the intelligence unit. "Information you wanted on Sunday's demonstration at the Capitol."
"Thanks," Davis replied, in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper. "Forwarding same to our Intell. folks who continue to monitor."
Guard officials say they did not send anyone to physically monitor the protest. They just kept tabs on it from a distance. A spokesman said the Guard would be negligent in not tracking anti-war rallies, which could easily escalate into a riot.
"Who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up?" said spokesman Lt. Col. Stan Zezotarski about CodePink and the Raging Grannies. "After all, we live in the age of terrorism."
The California National Guard has already hurt its reputation by setting up a questionable military flight for Republican Party activists and diverting money earmarked for drug interdiction. Partly because of those controversies, the Schwarzenegger administration forced Eres to retire early this month.
While the California National Guard has a proper role in ensuring security, the California Highway Patrol and not the Guard is the lead agency in protecting the Capitol. So why, at a time when it is stretched thin both here and in Iraq, is the Guard apparently engaging in "mission bloat" by snooping on political groups?
Unless they want to be featured in the next Michael Moore movie, leaders of the Guard and the governor should examine their policies about alerting the snoops whenever Californians exercise their First Amendment rights. Military intelligence, the old joke says, is an oxymoron. It's a particularly dangerous one in the hands of amateurs.
© 2005 Sacramento Bee
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