NSA Used City Police to Track Peace Activists

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011306Q.shtml

 

NSA Used City Police to Track Peace Activists

By Douglas Birch

The Baltimore Sun

 

Friday 13 January 2006

 

Activists monitored on way to Fort Meade war protest, agency memos

show.

 

The National Security Agency used law enforcement agencies,

including the Baltimore Police Department, to track members of a city

anti-war group as they prepared for protests outside the sprawling

Fort Meade facility, internal NSA documents show.

 

The target of the clandestine surveillance was the Baltimore

Pledge of Resistance, a group loosely affiliated with the local

chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, whose members

include many veteran city peace activists with a history of nonviolent

civil disobedience.

 

Under various names, the activists have staged protests at the NSA

campus off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway every year since 1996.

 

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, members of the group say,

their protests have come under increasing scrutiny by federal and

local law enforcement officials working on behalf of the NSA.

 

An internal NSA e-mail, posted on two Internet sites this week,

shows how operatives with the " Baltimore Intel Unit " provided a

minute-by-minute account of Pledge of Resistances' preparations for a

July 3, 2004, protest at Fort Meade. An attorney for the demonstrators

said he obtained the document through the discovery process from NSA.

 

" ****UPDATE: 11:55 HRS. S/A V - - - - ADVISED THE PROTESTORS LEFT

4600 YORK ROAD EN ROUTE TO THE NSA CAMPUS ... S/A V - - - REPORTED

FIVE OR SIX PEOPLE IN A BLUE VAN WITH BLACK BALLOONS, ANTI-WAR SIGNS

AND A POSSIBLE HELIUM TANK, " reported an internal NSA e-mail.

 

Later, those shadowing the peace group reported on their arrival

at the NSA's Fort Meade headquarters.

 

" ****UPDATE: 1300 HRS. THE SOC WAS ADVISED THE PROTESTORS WERE

PROCEEDING TO THE AIRPLANE MEMORIAL WITH THREE HELIUM BALLOONS

ATTACHED TO A BANNER THAT STATED " THOSE WHO EXCHANGE FREEDOM FOR

SECURITY DESERVE IT, NEITHER WILL ULTIMATELY LOSE BOTH, " the NSA's

somewhat garbled account of the event reported.

 

Ellen E. Barfield, a veteran peace activist from Hampden, was one

of three Pledge members detained and cited that afternoon, charged

with creating a " disturbance. " The charges were later dropped.

 

Barfield called the effort law enforcement agencies put into

monitoring this act of civil disobedience " totally absurd. "

 

" We have a history of nonviolence, " she said. " We are absolutely

no threat to anyone, and they know it. And they're wasting tons of

money and tons of time doing this. "

 

An agency spokesman said protests are routinely monitored by the

NSA Police, who are responsible only for the installation's security,

not the code breakers and eavesdroppers who monitor international

electronic communications.

 

The only reference to technical information-gathering in the three

public NSA documents - two e-mails and an internal " Action Plan " - is

a reference in to an NSA employee's effort to check on the protesters'

plans by browsing the Web.

 

" Security at NSA serves to protect the agency and its employees, "

NSA spokesman Don Weber said in a statement. " Like any security force,

they maintain documentation to include activity logs and action plans

used in response to potential activities impacting the agency.

 

" Furthermore, they partner with state, local and federal law

enforcement agencies to assess these activities and the potential

impact on the agency and its personnel, " Weber continued. " All these

activities are conducted in a lawful manner. The allegations that NSA

is spying on local peace groups is simply not true. "

 

James Bamford, a lawyer and journalist who has written two

acclaimed books about the NSA, said the agency has a right to protect

itself from external threats. " But it would be an entirely separate

thing if the NSA tried to monitor communications " from the Baltimore

anti-war group, using the agency's sophisticated technology.

 

There is no evidence this happened. But the documents have

surfaced at a critical time for the NSA.

 

The New York Times reported in December that after Sept. 11, the

NSA began monitoring the electronic communications of Americans

suspected of contacts with terrorists, without first obtaining court

orders. President Bush authorized the program in 2002 and has defended

it as necessary to protect the nation.

 

Some legal analysts and administration critics say the agency's

actions violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

In some ways, Independence Day weekend protests by members of the

Baltimore Pledge of Resistance have become an annual ritual.

 

Every year, protesters demand to talk with NSA officials. Some try

to slip in one of the entrances and get arrested. Even before Sept.

11, Bamford said, the NSA overreacted, " considering the scale of the

protest. "

 

An NSA e-mail contained in court files shows that before the

Pledge of Resistance's Oct. 4, 2003, protest, which coincided with the

agency's annual " family day " picnic, NSA relied on a detective working

for the Baltimore Police Department's Criminal Intelligence Unit to

monitor the demonstrators' movements.

 

That unit handles some of the city's most politically sensitive

investigations, including threats to public officials.

 

The city detective, the 2003 e-mail said, " advised that they will

have someone working this weekend who will scope out their departure

from the American Friends Service Committee 4806 York Rd. Govans. The

Baltimore City PD counterpart will give [name of an NSA official

blacked out] a heads up as to the numbers departing from the Govans

location. "

 

The NSA e-mail regarding the July 2004 protest does not make clear

who conducted that day's surveillance on the agency's behalf. While it

refers to the " Baltimore Intel Unit, " the chief of the city's Criminal

Intelligence Unit, Major David Engel, said he had no record that any

of his officers participated.

 

" We have absolutely nothing in our files related to it, " he said,

referring to the protest in 2004.

 

Max J. Obuszewski, a veteran Baltimore anti-war activist who works

for the American Friends Service Committee, said protesters have been

trying to publicize the two documents since they were released in

Federal District Court in August 2004.

 

The NSA July 2004 e-mail and the NSA's " Action Plan " for the

October 2003 protest were finally publicized this week by Kevin B.

Zeese, a candidate for the US Senate from Maryland, on the Web sites

" rawstory.com " and " democracyrising.us. "

 

The NSA disclosed them as part of the discovery process in the

prosecution of two Baltimore Pledge of Resistance members, Cynthia H.

Farquhar and Marilyn Carlisle. Both were detained during the October

2003 protest and convicted of failing to obey a police officer's

orders. They were fined $250, according to federal court records.

 

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