Have we no privacy anymore?,....
Why The Military, CIA?
Military, CIA intruding into domestic gathering of intelligence
Military, CIA intruding into domestic gathering of intelligence
The Pentagon and CIA have no business conducting intelligence operations within the United States. Yet that's what's been happening.
The Pentagon, under former Defense Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld, started five years ago to aggressively gather intelligence on suspected terrorists or espionage suspects within the United States. So has the CIA. Neither agency should be interfering with the role of the FBI, which traditionally has done covert intelligence gathering within the U.S.
The disclosure of these expanded and self-promoted actions by the military and CIA warrant hearings by the Congress. Otherwise, the two agencies will be tempted to further advance their intelligence operations within the United States, and this is not a wise situation.
As much as Bush administration officials deny any danger to the public's rights in their intelligence operations, the simple fact is that the USA Patriot Act has made the CIA and Pentagon more bold in what they believe they can do.
Congress has intended to restrict the CIA's role to foreign intelligence gathering. And the military, far from being a domestic intelligence agency, should rely on the FBI. This is important, if for no other reason than the fact that three agencies, doing separate intelligence work, can easily trip over one another, possibly blow an agent's cover or, in other ways, harm the effectiveness of the information gathering. For example, the FBI says military officials frequently have dealt directly with local police without the FBI's knowledge of cases.
The military has been issuing national security letters that allow it to obtain financial records and other confidential data on people. The CIA long has been restricted from doing domestic intelligence. In both cases, federal agencies seem to have expanded their probes beyond traditional roles as they aggressively react to efforts to intercept and stop terrorists.
Secretary Rumsfeld's Pentagon has been particularly zealous in using the authority it believes was given in legal interpretations decades ago and has been emboldened by the Patriot Act. Thus, Congress has an obligation to re-examine and put into statute what the Pentagon and CIA can do. Using these agencies for domestic spying is a bad idea.
