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Pentagon Shifts Focus From Quakers And Hippies
April 2, 2008
Remember the Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity Office? [Washington Post]
That’s the creepy DoD program that, under the guise of collecting info on domestic threats, “included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls.”
More on the program’s excesses here: [SourceWatch]
Now, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is planning on shutting it down. Well, sorta. [New York Times]
The Grey Lady reports that the closure is “part of a broad effort under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to review, overhaul and, in some cases, dismantle an intelligence architecture built by his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld.” [New York Times]
The changes: The CIFA will be “dismantled” and “some of its operations be placed under the authority of the Defense Intelligence Agency.”
So… good news?
Unclear.
Civil liberties groups are concerned that “the change might be cosmetic and that the Pentagon might be closing the office to farm out its operations to other agencies that receive less scrutiny.”
And it seems like the Pentagon agrees.
A Pentagon spokesman said the move was “aimed at creating efficiencies and streamlining” and “had nothing to do with its troubled history.”
Quakers, keep a look out.
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