According to a
recently declassified military document obtained by a prominent civil liberties
group the United States military spied on Planned Parenthood and other domestic
groups as part of US security preparations for the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt
Lake City.
The document, drafted
by a Pentagon Deputy Inspector General, was included in more than 800 pages
released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as part of a Freedom of
Information Act Request. They include reports from the Pentagon's Intelligence
Oversight Board that were submitted to the Defense Secretary from 2001 to 2007.
The document contained information on organizations and their involvement in
protests and literature distribution. The whole body of documents released to the Electronic
Frontier Foundation showed that military intelligence spied on numerous
domestic groups including Planned Parenthood and the anti-war group Alaskans
for Peace and Justice. The released documents give no indication as to how or why
the Pentagon spied on these groups.
A spokesperson for
EFF said that much of the allegedly illegal activity consisted of intelligence
gathering on so-called “U.S. Persons,” including citizens, permanent residents
and U.S.-based organizations. Defense agencies as a rule are prohibited from
collecting such information (except as part of foreign intelligence or
counter-intelligence activity). Based on the un-redacted reports released to
EFF these military agencies continued to spy domestically, in spite of the widely known prohibitions on such activities.
A copy of the Pentagon's Intelligence Oversight Board report can
be viewed here: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/intel_oversight/20100202_dod_PT1.pdf
