U.S protesters found in Defense database: ACLU questions entries in tracking system
A Defense Department database devoted to gathering information on potential threats to military facilities and personnel, known as Talon, had 13,000 entries as of a year ago — including 2,821 reports involving American citizens, according to an internal Pentagon memo to be released today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Pentagon memo says an examination of the system led to the deletion of 1,131 reports involving Americans, 186 of which dealt with “anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S.” Titled “Review of the TALON Reporting System,” the four-page memo produced in February 2006 summarizes some interim results from an inquiry ordered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after disclosure in December 2005 that the system had collected and circulated data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.
This story reminds of something I saw scrawled on the wall of a men’s room in a truck stop just outside Houston a few days ago: I LOVE MY COUNTRY. I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT. Indeed. I’m not normally one to take my philosophical and/or ideological cues from restroom walls, but this got me to thinking, and I haven’t been able to stop since. With each passing day, I’m beginning to realize the simple truth contained in those two sentences.
When our government can listen to our phone calls, read our mail, and malign our patriotism if we don’t unquestioningly go along with these and other nefarious methods, who, really, are the terrorists? When government can label someone a “terrorist” and by doing so hold them indefinitely, deny them their habeas corpus and Constitutional rights, have not the terrorists already emerged victorious?
Over the past six years, we have sat idly by while Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader ©: and his neocon thugs have installed a state security apparatus that would have made Nazi Germany proud. The simple act of getting on an airplane now involves checking any sense of propriety and dignity at the airport door. Travelers must now endure a security protocol that involves just about everything short of a strip search and a digital rectal exam. Yes, in order to fly to your destination, you must willingly and unquestioningly check your dignity at the door.
What have we allowed our country to become in the five-plus years since 9.11? I’m not certain that I have a name for it, but it’s not a democracy. A democracy does not put 350,000 people on a “no-fly” list with no explanation or mechanism for appeal. A democracy does not label everyone named “Dave Nelson” a potential terrorist, thereby subjecting them to extra security searches/invasions of privacy. A democracy does not use 9.11 and the never-ending War on Terror © as justification for imprisoning human beings indefinitely, without charges and without access to any sort of legal representation. A democracy does not slap the “terrorist” label on an American citizen, hold him indefinitely and without access to counsel, and break that individual psychologically because they can.
After giving it some thought, I’ve realized that the restroom philosopher was onto something. Like him, I love my country. I’m proud to be an American, but damn, I detest and fear my government and what they’re doing to the country I love.
Somewhere, Josef Goebbels and Hermann Goering are smiling….
