Pentagon Wants to Spy on Americans

The DIA and other Pentagon agencies are increasing their human intelligence activities in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and threats to US military bases and facilities at home and abroad. Peirce said one reason the new authority is needed is that there is “evidence the enemy is inside the US perimeter.“

*Also See: Pentagon Seeks Leeway to Approach Citizens:* Loosening decades-old limitations, the Pentagon is asking Congress to allow its intelligence agents to go undercover when they approach Americans who may have useful national-security information, rather than identifying themselves as intelligence operatives.

    As part of the expanding counterterrorism role being taken on by the Pentagon, Defense Intelligence Agency covert operatives need to be able to approach potential sources in the United States without identifying themselves as government agents, George Peirce, the DIA’s general counsel, said yesterday.

    “This is not about spying on Americans,” Peirce said in an interview in which he defended legislative language approved last week by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The provision would grant limited authority for DIA agents to clandestinely collect information about US citizens or emigres in this country to help determine whether they could be recruited as sources of intelligence information.

    “We are not asking for the moon,” Peirce said. “We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person” and at the same time “protect the ID and safety of our officers.” The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the DIA needs it “to develop critical leads” because “there is more than enough work for all of us to do.”

    The legislative proposal has been controversial on Capitol Hill and has drawn criticism from groups concerned with privacy and civil liberties. The House’s intelligence authorization bill, which passed in…

Posted by ShiftShapers
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