A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn’t know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a "threat."
All of which would be comical, except that such Orwellian surveillance can frequently screw up someone’s life. If the Pentagon is watching Quakers, then how many other groups they are also watching? And why? And who are they passing on the information to? Freedom of assembly and dissent are constitutional rights, the military has no need and no right to monitor such peaceful meetings. Yet they’ll turn around and say the US invaded Iraq to guarantee those very same rights for Iraqis – as they trample on them here.