More domestic spying

The ACLU finds that Quakers and other non-violent protest groups are on the Pentagon watch list:

Documents obtained by the ACLU have revealed that the inclusion within the Pentagon's TALON database of traditional and constitutionally protected protest activities was more widespread than previously known. According to a memorandum released to the ACLU, as of February 10, 2006, of the entries deleted from the TALON database, 186 TALON reports involved "anti-military protests or demonstrations in the U.S." The document does not reveal whether any such reports remain in the database, though it does state that approximately 2,821 TALON reports involve what the Department describes as "U.S. person information."

Protests against the war in Iraq were a common trigger for TALON reporting. For example, a protest entitled "Stop the War NOW!" was reported as a potential terrorist threat in a March 2005 TALON. The TALON describes the protest, aimed at a military recruiting station and federal building in Akron, Ohio, as including a rally, march, and "Reading of Names of War Dead."

A February 2005 TALON focuses on protests planned by the War Resisters League ("WRL") near New York City recruiting stations. The document describes WRL as advocating "Gandhian nonviolence." The protests, the TALON states, were to include "a church service for peace," "lively signs and loud chants," a vigil, and a procession with coffins. CODEPINK, a women's group opposed to the war in Iraq, as well as the peace group United for Peace and Justice are mentioned as joining WRL in protest events. The report includes guidelines for "nonviolence training" in which Protesters agree that they "will not use physical violence or verbal abuse towards any person," that they "will not damage any property," and that they "will not carry weapons." Nonetheless, the report warns, without basis, that WRL members may favor "civil disobedience and vandalism."

Many of the TALON reports focus on anti-recruitment events and protests. For example, a TALON report about the avowedly nonviolent Broward Anti-War Coalition includes information from the Miami-Dade Police Department describing a protest planned for a Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show. The TALON report reveals that the U.S. Army Recruiting Command and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Miami had been briefed on the planned protest, which was intended to "counter military recruitment and the ‘pro-war' message with ‘guerrilla theatre and other forms of subversive propaganda.'"

Similarly, the American Friends Service Committee ("AFSC") appears in a TALON report regarding the Quaker peace group's planned protests at a recruiting center in Springfield, Illinois (the TALON is amended to correct the location of the protests as "special agent of the federal protective service, U.S. Department of Homeland Security," provides information he received in an email alert from the AFSC: "[A] series of protest actions were planned in the Springfield, IL area . . . to focus on actions at military recruitment offices with the goals to include: raising awareness, education, visibility in community, visibility to recruiters as part of a national day of action focused on military recruiters." The source notes that the AFSC needs more community members to pass out flyers and "hold signs and banners."

The Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace ("RICCP") also appears in a TALON report regarding its organizing of a protest in front of a National Guard recruiting station in downtown Providence. The TALON describes RICCP as "an emerging RI coalition in opposition to the war in Iraq" which will "hold a picketing action." The source, a "special agent of a federal law enforcement agency," reports RICCP's stated goals for a planning meeting as "‘creat[ing] awareness of an organized, actionoriented, anti-war movement in Providence'" through "one on one interactions at the picket." The TALON also records RICCP's slogan, "‘Stop the call of RI National Guard and end the occupation of Iraq.'" It appears from the document that the source obtained the information about RICCP from a "posting on an Internet bulletin board."