Pentagon wants new spying powers in US

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

_______________ Forward Header _______________
Subject:        Pentagon wants new spying powers in US
Author: Kurt Albershardt <kurt () nv net>
Date:           16th October 2005 9:44:26 am

<http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1011/dailyUpdate.html>

Claiming it needs greater latitude for the war on terror, the US Senate 
Intelligence Committee has approved a request from the Pentagon for the 
right to "covertly" gather intelligence on US citizens in order to 
determine whether they can recruit them as informants, without telling 
them that they are doing so on behalf of the US government. Reuters 
reported Friday that the Pentagon said the measure, which is aimed at 
the Muslim community in the US, could help them fight insurgencies in 
Iraq and Afghanistan.

    "We believe there are people in the United States who have 
information of value to us," said Jim Schmidli, deputy general counsel 
for operations at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "That 
information is within different ethnic communities in this country -- 
recent additions to our population from distressed areas of the world, 
primarily the Middle East."

But civil libertarians and leaders of the Muslim community charge, 
however, that the Pentagon is using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to 
reclaim domestic spying powers that Congress had taken away from it 
after those powers were abused to spy on Americans during the Vietnam era.

The intelligence committee has backed the request as part of the 2006 
intelligence spending authorization bill. The full Senate will take up 
the bill later this month. The Pentagon's request was not included in 
the House version of the bill, which was passed in June. The bill will 
now go to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

<snip>

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