The Pentagon's spy unit has quietly begun to rebuild a database for tracking potential terrorist threats that was shut down after it emerged that it had been collecting information on American anti-war activists.Most specific is the Adminstration's war on all domestic whistle-blowers and leakers in general, and Julian Assange and his heroic WikiLeaks in particular. Assange is literally on the run for his life -- in hiding from an American President who claims the right to murder anyone on the planet, including US citizens, if he feels that person is a national security threat. If exposing the internal workings of a corporate-fascist empire is a threat to national security, then Assange certainly is a threat. When the great Dan Ellsberg was arrested by the Nixon Administration for releasing the Pentagon Papers, the press, the progressive community, and the Democratic Party all screamed bloody hell. Who is screaming now, when a contemporary leaker of far more important information is in Obama's gunsights?
The Defense Intelligence Agency filed notice this week that it plans to create a new section called Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records, whose purpose will be to "document intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic operations relating to the protection of national security."
But while the unit's name refers to "foreign intelligence," civil liberties advocates and the Pentagon's own description of the program suggest that Americans will likely be included in the new database.
Not much screaming, but a full and brave discussion of just what is happening.