Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 25. september 2013 / Timeline September 25, 2013
Version 3.524. September 2013, 26. September 2013
09/25/2013
"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security
Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank
Church, et al.
Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans
Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era
Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New
Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the
Panama Canal Negotiations
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr
Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 -- During the height of the
Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of
selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war,
according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those
names on the NSA's watch list were secret but thanks to the
decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the
National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first
time. The names of the NSA's targets are startling. Civil rights
leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch
list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom
Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald.
Also startling is that NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas
telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of
Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker
(R-Tennessee).
What initially fueled the NSA watch list program was President
Johnson's angry reaction to the Vietnam War protests. Convinced
that hostile foreign powers, the Soviet Union or China, were aiding
and abetting the protests, Johnson wanted the intelligence agencies
to monitor antiwar critics and protest leaders to determine whether
they had overseas communist support. In 1967, the National Security
Agency begun a watch list of suspected individuals based on
information from the CIA and the FBI. President Richard Nixon had
similar suspicions about the anti-war protests and the program
continued, under the code-name MINARET. In 1973, the Justice
Department closed down the program, partly at the instigation of
NSA officials who saw the program as "disreputable, if not outright
illegal."
The watch list targets were named in an NSA history, American
Cryptology during the Cold War, a multi-volume study that covers
the intersection of secret communications intelligence with Cold
War history. In 2008, in response to numerous excisions in the NSA
release, the National Security Archive filed an appeal with the
Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP). In July
2013, ISCAP declassified the watch list targets and other
previously redacted details.
The ISCAP release protected many NSA secrets, such as its role in
arms control verification and most of the coverage of sensitive
communications intelligence (COMINT). Nevertheless, ISCAP
declassified some new and surprising information:
* An August 1961 intercept provided advance warning information of
the East German decision to close the intra-Berlin borders, the
action that led to the Berlin Wall.
* Weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, NSA detected that
the Soviets put military forces on higher alert and stood down
their strategic bomber fleet. Apparently Moscow was worried that
the United States had discovered the missile deployments.
* Wiretaps on Panama's president Omar Torrijos during the 1970s
gave U.S. diplomats a significant advantage in the negotiations
that produced the Panama Canal Treaty, according to the NSA
history.
The National Security Archive has been filing declassification
requests for background on the NSA watch list program, including
the 1,600 names mentioned in the declassified history. Once more
information becomes declassified, it will be featured on the
Archive's Web site.
Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive website
- -http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/
09/25/2013
Major Victory Shows the Power of BDS Organizing!
We just received confirmation that Veolia Transdev -- a
long-standing target of boycott and divestment Palestine solidarity
campaigns worldwide along with its partial owner Veolia Environment
-- has sold off all bus services in Israel/Palestine! Until last
week, Veolia Transdev, through its Israeli subsidiary Connex,
operated bus lines for settlers on segregated roads in the
Palestinian West Bank, and other lines throughout Israel. Today it
operates none.
Veolia remains an important target. It continues to own and operate
the Tovlan landfill in the occupied West Bank, which collects and
dumps refuse from Israeli settlements using illegally captured
Palestinian land and natural resources -- a form of pillage; it
provides wastewater services to settlements; and Veolia Transdev
still operates the Jerusalem Light Rail, which deeply entrenches
and normalizes Israeli illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. ,
Veolia remains an important target. It continues to own and operate
the Tovlan landfill in the occupied West Bank, which collects and
dumps refuse from Israeli settlements using illegally captured
Palestinian land and natural resources -- a form of pillage; it
provides wastewater services to settlements; and Veolia Transdev
still operates the Jerusalem Light Rail, which deeply entrenches
and normalizes Israeli illegal settlements in East Jerusalem,
writes the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
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