Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 3 Juli 2006 / Time Line July 3, 2006
Version 3.507/03/2006
ACLU Sues Pentagon for Files on University of California Student
Groups
(3/7/2006)
SAN FRANCISCO -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern
California today filed a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
on behalf of University of California student groups whose anti-war
activities may have been monitored by the Pentagon.
The ACLU is seeking expedited processing and release of all
documents maintained by the Department of Defense on the groups,
including records in the Threat and Local Observation Notice
(TALON) report system and database.
“With mounting public concern over the government’s
expanded domestic surveillance activities, it is critical that the
Department of Defense act quickly and disclose all information it
has collected on these student organizations and their
members,” said Dorothy Ehrlich, Executive Director of the
ACLU of Northern California.
On February 1, the ACLU of Northern California and the San
Francisco Bay Guardian filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request on behalf of UC Santa Cruz Students Against War and the UC
Berkeley Stop the War Coalition. On February 13, the Department of
Defense denied the request for expedited processing. Today’s
lawsuit challenges the government’s denial.
“The Department of Defense has already told Congress that
information about protest activities was inappropriately included
in the TALON database,” said Mark Schlosberg, Police
Practices Policy Director of the ACLU of Northern California.
“Therefore, the students who participated in these
demonstrations deserve to be told why their activities were
included in a terrorist database, what information was collected,
and who it was shared with.”
ACLU of Northern California cooperating attorney Amitai Schwartz
added: “There is no legal justification for delaying the
processing of this FOIA request. The students and the public have a
right to prompt public disclosure about this spying
program.”
The University of California students first discovered they were
listed in the Pentagon’s secret TALON database through an
MSNBC news report in December. Following public outcry over the
Pentagon domestic spying program, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Gordon England issued a memorandum on January 13, 2006, directing
intelligence personnel to receive “refresher training on the
policies for collection, retention, dissemination and use of
information related to U.S. persons.”
On January 27, the Defense Department sent a letter to Congress
saying that the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA),
responsible for maintaining the database, “has removed the
TALON reports on demonstrations and anti-base activity from the
database. The process to remove other reports that are no longer
analytically significant is ongoing.”
Last month, the national ACLU filed a similar FOIA request on
behalf of the American Friends Service Committee, Veterans for
Peace, United for Peace and Justice and Greenpeace. In Georgia,
Rhode Island, Maine and Pennsylvania, ACLU affiliates are also
seeking Pentagon files on local groups.
Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California. Lead attorneys in the case are
Schwartz and cooperating attorney Lisa Sitkin.
The complaint is online at
www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/24415lgl20060307.html
Konstanty Hordynski, a UC Santa Cruz student who found out he was
listed in the TALON database, tells his story in a “Faces of
Surveillance” feature online at
www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24142res20060214.html
More information on the national ACLU’s efforts to uncover
spying on innocent Americans is online at www.aclu.org/spyfiles
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