Local peace activists allege Army spied on them

Back in February 2006, my former Seattle Post-Intelligencer colleague Paul Shukovsky and I wrote about authorities keeping tabs on local non-violent peace activists in Seattle in the name of homeland security.

Now the New York Times reports, in an item picked up by the Seattle Times, that the Army has opened in an inquiry into an accusation from antiwar groups that a Fort Lewis employee, identified by the post as an intelligence analyst, spent more than two years infiltrating peace groups under a false name.

The story by New York Times reporter William Yardley quotes Stephen Dycus, an expert on national security issues at Vermont Law School.

According to the Times, Dycus said the Army was prohibited from conducting law enforcement among civilians except in very rare circumstances, none of which immediately appeared to be relevant to the Fort Lewis case. Dycus said several statutes and rules also prohibited the Army from conducting covert surveillance of civilian groups for intelligence purposes.

"Infiltration is a really big deal," he said. He said it "raises fundamental questions about the role of the military in American society."

Back in 2006, the story Shukovsky and I reported was based upon public disclosure requests of FBI files that local authorities and the FBI looked for signs of civil disobedience in activists preparing to protest Navy ships at Seafair. And caught in the glare of the public eye were groups like in their vigilance had checked out groups like the Raging Grannies, known for their musical satire, and Quakers, known for non-violence.

As often happens with well-intentioned laws and policies, they evolve and get stretched over time.

Personally, I think we ought to drop "homeland" as a term for the bureaucracy. It has a Third Reich or Soviet ring to it with all the attendant stigmas. Why not "civil security" or something more American, federal folks? "Civil Defense" was good enough for out grandparents and the rest of us who had to conduct those duck and cover drills during the Cold War.

While I'm on a rant, also get rid of "warrior." Who dreamt it up? I take the lead from my late dad on this one, a career Army soldier and at one time at age 22 the youngest master sergeant in the Army.

He served during the occupation of Germany and through the Korean and Vietnam wars and worked in a distinguished intelligence unit. I remember a couple of years ago he was grumbling about the references to "warrior this' and 'warrior that.'"

"Warriors," he scoffed, "sounds like a bunch of spearchuckers. After WW II, in Germany the proudest thing you could hear was 'soldat Amerkaner' -- American soldier," my dad said. "That's what I was, what I am. American soldier."