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 News from Around the Americas | July 2005 
California Guard Probed by US
 Don Thompson - Associated Press
Sacramento - Military authorities yesterday began investigating whether a California National Guard unit was created to spy on citizens, as dozens of demonstrators confronted Guard officials while armed soldiers stood by.
The federal probe of the nation's largest National Guard force involves the Army's inspector general, the federal National Guard Bureau's inspector general, and the National Guard Bureau's legal division.
The unit has raised concern among peace activists that the Guard is resorting to the same type of civilian monitoring that helped fuel protests during the Vietnam War. During the 1960s and '70s, the military collected information on more than 100,000 Americans. Such monitoring, while not illegal, would be a departure for the Guard.
"These are your mothers, grandmothers, and neighbors," said George Main, president of Veterans for Peace and an organizer of the protest yesterday outside Guard headquarters. About 30 demonstrators took part.
"They are not potential terrorist threats," Main said. "The excuse that these groups might be infiltrated is an insult to the intelligence of every Californian."
Under scrutiny is a California National Guard unit with a tongue-twisting name: the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management, and Intelligence Fusion program. It was established last year and came to public light after a recent story in the San Jose Mercury News.
Investigators also are looking into the Guard's monitoring of a Mother's Day antiwar demonstration at the state Capitol that was organized by several peace groups. The activities were documented in e-mails originating in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office and made public by the newspaper.
That monitoring was by a second unit, the Guard's Domestic Watch Center. Both units were under the command of Colonel Jeff Davis, who has since retired and left the state.
Guard spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Doug Hart said monitoring activities merely meant tracking media coverage of the protest. "We do not spy on people," Hart said. "Never have, never will."
A member of the women's peace group Code Pink, which was one of the groups involved in the Mother's Day protest, took issue.
"Even with a seemingly innocent act as watching TV, they're breaking the law," said Natalie Wormeli, who wore a T-shirt reading "One Nation Under Surveillance" at the demonstration yesterday.
The Guard has described the unit as consisting of two members who monitor the military's classified e-mail system, and seven others who help gauge terrorist threats to bridges, buildings, and other structures.
Protesters spoke outside the Guard's headquarters in a suburban Sacramento office park, at one point engaging in a verbal confrontation with Guard officials as soldiers carrying M-16 rifles stood in the background. One soldier blocked the locked headquarters door as the protesters tried to enter.
Officials in the Guard and the governor's office said they will cooperate in the federal inquiry. Hart said the federal units were declining comment on their probe. |
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