War - period ended 1.31.2006

War/Civil Rights/Meetinghouse/Hersh, Rich/US accused of spying on those who disagree with Bush policies/Myrtle Beach Sun News/Myrtle Beach/SC/USA/21-Jan-2006/SunSentinel/…The Truth Project gained national attention when NBC News reported last month that it was described as a "credible threat" in a database of suspicious activity compiled by the Pentagon's Talon program. The listing cited the group's gathering a year ago at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla., to talk about ways to counter military recruitment at high schools.

Talon is separate from the controversial domestic-surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency. Bush has acknowledged signing orders that allow the NSA to eavesdrop without the usual court warrants, prompting an outcry from many in Congress. ...\

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Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel/Ft. Lauderdale/FL/USA/21-Jan-2006
Bradenton Herald/Bradenton/FL/USA/21-Jan-2006
Orlando Sentinel/Orlando/FL/USA/21-Jan-2006
Pioneer Press/St. Paul/MN/USA/20-Jan-2006
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer/Columbus/GA/USA/20-Jan-2006
Duluth News Tribune/Duluth/MN/USA/20-Jan-2006
Kansas City Sta/Kansas City/MO/USA/20-Jan-2006
Belleville News-Democrat/Belleville/IL/USA/20-Jan-2006
Centre Daily Times/State College/PA/USA/20-Jan-2006
San Jose Mercury News/San Jose/CA/USA/20-Jan-2006
San Luis Obispo Tribune/San Luis Obispo/CA/USA/20-Jan-2006
Monterey County Herald/Moneterey/CA/USA/20-Jan-2006
Contra Costa Times/Contra Costa/CA/USA/20-Jan-2006
Kentucky.com/Lexington/KY/USA/20-Jan-2006
Biloxi Sun Herald/Biloxi/MS/USA/20-Jan-2006
Fort Wayne News Sentinel/Fort Wayne/IN/USA/20-Jan-2006

War/Religious Faith/Prignitz, Earl J./I Have a Dream!/American Chronicle/Newport Beach/CA/USA/20-Jan-2006//I am a Quaker and Friends have always maintained this testimony to the world for over three centuries. I know that there are many who will argue that we are living in a different world. But that has always been the argument. There have always been excuses for war. But the God that I worship certainly didn’t encourage the use of force when he was here on earth in human form. Jesus admonished his followers to love God and our neighbors. He said to turn the other cheek to those who would smite you and to love your enemies.

War/Protest/Civl Rights/NYC activist groups react to new NYPD spy tactics/Village Voice/New York/NY/USA/24-Jan-2006//... A database created by the Pentagon's TALON (Threat and Local Observation Notice) system listed several protests, including a Quaker meeting in Florida, as ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/No need to act outside law/Sun-Sentinel.com/Ft. Lauderdale/FL/USA/30-Jan-2006//... They are grandmothers, housewives, students and business people who gathered in a Quaker church to discuss their shared interest in advocating peace. ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/Bad Targeting/Washington Post/Washington/DC/USA/30-Jan-2006//... So were people who assembled at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla., or protested military recruiters at sites such as New York University, the State ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/Spying and lying in 21st-century America/Asia Times Online/Hong Kong/China/Asia/26-Jan-2006//The army's current activities appear to be less extensive, but that may be simply because the media obtained evidence much more quickly. This came in the form of a 400-page dossier of 1,519 "suspicious" organizations or activities the army labeled "threats". To date, NBC Nightly News, which has a copy of the report, has released only eight pages. However, included in the gatherings "penetrated" by army counter-intelligence agents was a November 2004 planning session of locally known, non-confrontational, part-time counter-recruiting activists who openly gathered in the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Florida.

War/Protest/Civil Rights/ACLU decries 'spying on Georgians' by feds, locals/Atlanta Journal Constitution/Atlanta/GA/USA/25-Jan-2006//... The surveillance was done at a meeting at the Piedmont Drive Quaker headquarters and at a vigil at an Atlanta Army recruiting station on Ponce de Leon Avenue. ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/Spying and Lying in 21st Century America/Foreign Policy In Focus/Washington/DC/USA/25-Jan-2006//The army's current activities appear to be less extensive, but that may be simply because the media obtained evidence much more quickly. This came in the form of a 400-page dossier of 1,519 "suspicious" organizations or activities the army labeled "threats". To date, NBC Nightly News, which has a copy of the report, has released only eight pages. However, included in the gatherings "penetrated" by army counter-intelligence agents was a November 2004 planning session of locally known, non-confrontational, part-time counter-recruiting activists who openly gathered in the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Florida.

War/Protest/Civil Rights/Are We, the People, the Enemy?/American Chronicle/Newport Beach/CA/USA/23-Jan-2006//... global government? What will happen to Quaker and Mennonite families who refuse to participate and serve in foreign armies? What ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/Checking Big Brother/CBS News/New York/NY/USA/23-Jan-2006/Am. Prospect/... In one instance, a Quaker meeting appears to have been infiltrated. ... One answer is that the people who run this system can’t tell a terrorist from a Quaker. ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/The Other Big Brother/Newsweek/New York/NY/USA/22-Jan-2006//... It isn't clear how many groups and individuals were snagged by CIFA's dragnet. Details about the program, including its size and budget, are classified. In December, NBC News obtained a 400-page compilation of reports that detailed a portion of TALON's surveillance efforts. It showed the unit had collected information on nearly four dozen antiwar meetings or protests, including one at a Quaker meetinghouse in Lake Worth, Fla., and a Students Against War demonstration at a military recruiting fair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A Pentagon spokesman declined to say why a private company like Halliburton would be deserving of CIFA's protection. But in the past, Defense Department officials have said that the "force protection" mission includes military contractors since soldiers and Defense employees work closely with them and therefore could be in danger. ...

War/Protest/Civil Rights/News from the state, nation and world for Jan 16, 2006/Molokai Island Times/Holokai/HI/USA/16-Jan-2006//... website RawStory.com has obtained government documents showing the National Security Agency spied on the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace ...

War/Protest///Peace of the Gables/Miami New Times/Miami/FL/USA/25-Jan-2006//…They call themselves Miami for Peace. A motley group of artists, scientists, attorneys, and grandmothers, they hold signs declaring "War Is Not the Answer," "Torture Is Wrong," and, simply, "Peace," while waving at passing traffic outside the Quaker meeting house on Sunset Drive near SW 52nd Avenue.

They're here every Wednesday evening. Some weeks, more than 100 demonstrators have waved signs and shouted slogans. Other weeks, just two. Seven showed up January 18 — all older women except for Chris Phoenix, a bearded 35-year-old who looks like he'd fit in at a Phish reunion. That day some passersby honked and waved, and some shot low-key peace signs, but many just stared straight ahead. ...

War/Peace Activities/Civil Rights/Meetinhouse/An Overreaction to Threat/Washington Post/Washington/DC/USA/27-Jan-2006//... That grace period is plenty of time to follow the law. A Pentagon terrorist threat list included a peace group that met in a Quaker building in Florida. ...

War/Pacifism///Loss Drives Rosanne Cash's "Cadillac"/Rolling Stone/New York/NY/USA/30-Jan-2006//Compounding the problem was her public opposition to the war in Iraq, which angered many of her father's admirers. "I got so much hate mail," Cash says. "Invariably, they would say, 'Your father's a real American, and you should go sleep with Sadaam.'" Ironically, Johnny Cash himself was adamantly against the war. "It broke his heart, it really did," she asserts, claiming that her father was "addicted" to war coverage on CNN during his last months. "We talked about it in every single conversation we had," she says. "He was almost a Quaker in his pacifism. He thought there was never a reason for war -- and he had felt that way, he told me, since the Vietnam War."

War/Counter-Recruiting/Frank, Elizabeth/Battle lines/Pioneer Press Online/St. Paul/MN/USA/26-Jan-2006//…The Iraq War and the increased effort by military recruiters in schools across the country also has motivated a group of residents to visit the high schools in "counter-recruiting" activities, said Elizabeth Frank, whose two children graduated from Prospect High School.

Six other people have joined her at presentations at three District 214 schools -- Prospect High School, Buffalo Grove High School and Wheeling High School.

With permission from District 214 administrators, they set up tables in the commons area during lunch and distribute literature on peace efforts and ways to fund college other than with military benefits. Frank said her group partly bases its views on pacifist and social equality principles from the Christian Quaker religion, and she has participated in military draft counseling seminars by the Center for Conscientious Objectors to War, based in Washington, D.C. ...

War/Counter-Recruiting//Rebecca Payne: Will the 'real' enemies please step forward?/Lansing State Journal/Lansing/MI/USA/28-Jan-2006//... I belong to a group opposing military recruiters in high schools - and I am a Quaker. ... Another Quaker group in Fresno, Calif., was infiltrated by an FBI agent. ...

War/Civil Rights/Meetinghouse/Hersh, Rich/Truth Project spokesman witness in DC on spying/Palm Beach Post/Palm Beach/FL/USA/21-Jan-2006//...…WASHINGTON — Sitting in a wheelchair at the witness table Friday, Rich Hersh of Boca Raton tried to explain to a panel of congressional Democrats how his group of peace activists might be a threat.

"I think the truth is always a credible threat to illegitimate and unjust power," said Hersh, 59, spokesman for The Truth Project, a group that met in a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth to discuss nonviolent ways of countering military recruiting efforts at local high schools.

Hersh, who has a degenerative neurological disease, was one of six witnesses who testified under oath before the panel comprised mostly of Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was held to discuss the Bush administration's domestic spying program.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Republican leaders rejected requests for the full committee to hold the hearing. He also said he invited Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to send a representative from the Justice Department, but none appeared.

Hersh was the only witness from any group targeted by the spying program as a "credible threat" to the government. The other witnesses included experts on intelligence, constitutional lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and a former associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration. ...

War/Civil Rights/Anti-War//It’s time Democrats start pointing out Bush’s missteps with .../The American Prospect/Boston/MA/USA/20-Jan-2006//… How many terrorists do you suppose we have in the United States today? Real terrorists, like Mohammed Atta, who led the attacks of September 11, as opposed to anti-war Quakers?

Seriously. What’s your best guess? Fifty? One hundred? More?

Before 9-11, the FBI’s watch list consisted of only 16 names. Today it contains 80,000. As of June 2005, the National Counterintelligence Center had amassed files on 190,000 individuals. Do these numbers strike you as reasonable, or are suspicions getting out of hand?

The Pentagon is especially suspicious of Americans. Its Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) employs a thousand people to monitor “threats” to the military within the United States. Between July 2004 and May 2005, CIFA’s “Operation TALON” recorded 1,519 “suspicious incidents,” many of them involving lawful political activity by domestic peace groups. In one instance, a Quaker meeting appears to have been infiltrated. ….