same shit, different war

Time warp. It's 1967. The government is spying on peace activists. No wait, it's 1957. They're spying on civil rights activists. Nope, it's 1917, they're spying on war resisters. (Did ya know there was a peace movement in 1917? Did you know a presidential candidate when to jail for it?)

Well, it's 2005, and they still haven't stopped us. But not for lack of trying. From Common Dreams, an editorial in the Sacramento Bee:

Groups with names such as Raging Grannies, Gold Star Families for Peace and CodePink may not sound very threatening to our national security. Yet last month a special intelligence unit of the California National Guard was quietly tracking these groups as they prepped for an anti-war protest in front of the Capitol.

As the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday, the California National Guard has established an "Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion" program. It's a legacy of Maj. Gen. Thomas Eres, the Guard leader who was forced to retire this month. The unit's purpose, according to the Guard, is to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats.

Leaders of the California National Guard say the unit doesn't collect information on U.S. citizens. Maybe not, but it came dangerously close to crossing that line, if not charging across it, at the Mother's Day rally last month.

That's the rainy day when a few dozen Californians, including families of soldiers killed in the Iraq war, attended a rally outside the state Capitol. Three days beforehand, an aide in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office had alerted the California National Guard to the coming protest, according to the Mercury News.

The Guard sprung into action.

Read it here.