Everyone who reads this blog knows that I’ve consistently supported the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. Tonight, however, I heard a profoundly disturbing report. NBC has obtained documents showing that the military has been collecting information on the identities and activities of anti-war protestors. While I strongly disagree with the protestors, it’s their right as American citizens to express, in a non-violent fashion, their disagreement with the administration’s policies. This is all-too reminiscent of the FBI’s activities during the Vietnam era. Then, at least, there was concern about Communist infiltration of the anti-war movement. No such excuse exists today. The military’s action is beyond the pale.

HERE’S THE LINK TO DoD’S ANTI-WAR PROTEST DATABASE. My thanks to Dan Lucas for providing it.

Please read the comments for a fuller explanation of my point of view. There’s another debate going on at protein wisdom.

UPDATE

From MSNBC:

    A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn’t know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

    A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

    [ . . . ] The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.

    [ . . . ] [A] Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database.

    [ . . . ] The military’s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing — but familiar — to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer . . . During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.

    The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.

    “The military has the right to protect its installations, and to protect its recruiting services,” says Pyle. “It does not have the right to maintain extensive files on lawful protests of their recruiting activities, or of their base activities,” he argues.