Editorial: Eye on peaceful protests

Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006 | 7:41 a.m.

Newly disclosed federal documents show that the Defense Department collected tips about peaceful meetings at churches, libraries and other places where people gathered to organize anti-Iraq war protests. Ostensibly, it was part of the department's effort to keep informed about terrorist threats against military installations.

The documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, The New York Times reports, show that such events as "a church service for peace" and "nonviolence training" sessions for antiwar protesters were among the 13,000 entries listed in the Defense Department database called Talon.

Daniel Baur, acting director of the office that runs Talon, told the Times that the database personnel had misunderstood their directions. As a result, what was supposed to be a system for tracking suspected terrorist activities turned into a collection of leads that included protests against the U.S. military's presence in Iraq.

Reports of such listings first came into public view last year, after which Defense Department officials purged more than 180 entries about protests, the Times reports. Still, former U.S. Army Capt. Michael McPhearson, whose group, Veterans for Peace, was in several of the listings, says he doesn't fully trust that all such references have been deleted - or that the government has stopped collecting such data.

Baur's claims that such information was collected by accident and is no longer being logged would be easier to believe if President Bush and his administration didn't have such a poor record on respecting Americans' privacy and First Amendment rights. This is the administration, after all, that still is fighting for the right to eavesdrop on Americans' electronic communications without warrants.

Regardless of the Defense Department's assurances, Congress should fully investigate - not only to see that these peaceful actions have been deleted from the database, but also to ensure that it does not happen again.