Anti-War Protesters Under Pentagon Surveillance Speak Out

Thursday, December 15th, 2005

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155223

From Democracy Now: (follow above link to hear program and read transcript)

We speak to anti-war activists in New York, Florida, California, Iowa and Ohio who organized protests listed as threats by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon conducting domestic surveillance on peaceful protests and meetings has sent tremors though the country’s anti-war movement.

Some fear a repeat of the Vietnam War era when it was revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens.

The domestic surveillance was so extensive that Congress placed new laws on military spying inside the United States.
On Wednesday we contacted other anti-war and anti-nuclear activists around the county to get their reaction to the news about the Pentagon’s surveillance of peaceful protesters. This is what they had to say.

Chuck Fager, Quaker House Fayetteville, NC.
Snehal Shingavi, University of California-Berkeley [Campus Antiwar Network chapter].
Kristin Anderson, SFSU, Campus Anti-War Network Coordinating Committee
Will Klatt, High School Student Organizer.
Frank Cordaro, Des Moines Catholic Worker

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, student at New York University and member of the national coordinating committee of the Campus Antiwar Network, http://www.campusantiwar.net She helped organize a protest at NYU in February that was mentioned in the Pentagon intelligence papers.

Marie Zwicker, organizer with the counter-recruiter group Truth Project in Lake Worth, Florida. The group’s November 2004 meeting at a Quaker Meeting House was described as a “threat” in the Pentagon intelligence documents.

William Dobbs, spokesperson for United For Peace and Justice, www.unitedforpeace.org

See also interview with William Arkin, the former Army intelligence officer, who obtained the secret Pentagon documents.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/15/155219