The U.S. military monitored Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group as part of the government’s security preparations for the 2002 Olympics in Utah, according to new documents released by the Department of Defense.
The U.S. Joint Forces Command liaison collected and disseminated information on U.S. citizens who were members of Planned Parenthood and the white supremacist group National Alliance regarding their involvement in protests and distributing literature, according to an intelligence-oversight report released by the Pentagon. The documents indicate that the JFC liaison was working with the FBI’s Olympic Intelligence Center at the time.
This and other intelligence-activity disclosures appear in heavily redacted documents that were released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They came in response to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act project the organization is conducting to obtain oversight information from intelligence agencies.
EFF received more than 800 pages from intelligence oversight reports created by the Defense Department inspector general that examine actions, conducted by various branches of the department, that are believed to be illegal.
The reports cover the years 2001 to 2008 and were submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board and cover the U.S. Army, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military entities. The board is composed of private citizens with security clearances who are supposed to submit to the office of the president any reports describing activities that are believed to be illegal.
The reports provide little context for the information that’s disclosed, leaving the public to wonder about the nature and extent of the information and surveillance revealed in them.
Pertaining to the Planned Parenthood members, for example, the oversight report provides no explanation about how the information was collected. Nor does it indicate why the information was collected and notes only that military intelligence is not allowed to collect and disseminate information on U.S. persons unless the information constitutes “foreign intelligence.” The report indicates that the collection was therefore “clearly outside the purview of military intelligence” and should have been handled by law enforcement. ::MORE HERE::
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