Big Brother's watching who?

The American Civil Liberties Union released documents Oct. 12, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, showing that the Department of Defense has been monitoring antiwar activities on U.S. college campuses. These documents were collected from a Pentagon database known as the Threat and Local Observance Notice, or TALON, intended for collecting information on potential terrorist threats. Included are reports on various collegiate antiwar protests, such as an April 2005 incident in which 300 students and activists disrupted a University of California at Santa Cruz career fair attended by military recruiters and vandalized the recruiters' vehicles, and activities by a group called Students for Peace and Justice, which blocked the entrance to a recruitment office with two coffins draped with an American flag and an Iraqi flag, respectively. \nThe TALON papers note that while "no reported incidents have occurred at these protests," an intense debate had occurred among antiwar groups over whether to conduct vandalism and civil disobedience. The report cites at least two members of a Students for Peace and Justice chapter who "expressed interest in doing more than just protesting." An earlier report showed that the department also monitored e-mails sent among protestors at several other universities.\nWait, wait, wait. What is the Defense Department doing with these groups' e-mails? What is this doing in the TALON database? The report merely says the e-mails were submitted by "campus sources." So the universities turned them over to the Defense Department? \nIf it's a matter of protecting the department's property, that should be handled by local law enforcement. \nIf it's a matter of monitoring possible terrorist activities, that is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security and our many and various federal law enforcement authorities.\nWhether the campus antiwar organizations "do more than just protesting" or not, the Department of Defense already has its hands tied by federal law. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits federal troops from active participation in domestic law enforcement. That means that no matter what information TALON can gather, military recruiters can do no more than ordinary citizens in the face of local crime.\nOf course, we would never condone campus groups breaking the law. But the Defense Department is clearly toeing the boundaries delineating its scope of action. If the Pentagon is somehow privy to threatening information about campus antiwar organizations, its duty is to forward that information to the responsible parties.\nJust across the river from the Pentagon, there's an old piece of paper that ensures that we Americans, including college students, can get together whenever we want and think whatever we want. And, as it turns out, members of the military have sworn to defend and uphold the ideas written on that piece of paper.\nThe Pentagon has no business spying on American college students. That job belongs to Facebook.