CA Homeland Security tracking of peaceful political speech
MILLER STATEMENT ON CALIFORNIA HOMELAND SECURITY TRACKING OF PEACEFUL POLITICAL SPEECH
CONCORD, CA—Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) today responded to the Los Angeles Times report that he and others who had spoken at peace rallies and other political events were being tracked by the California Department of Homeland Security. The article stated reports had been filed about activities of people at a demonstration in Walnut Creek at which Miller and other officials spoke against the war in Iraq.
Miller’s statement is below.
“Today’s report in the Los Angeles Times describes completely unacceptable actions by the California Office of Homeland Security. There is no basis and no national security justification for their office to be tracking the actions of peaceful organizations who are participating in lawful demonstrations. The only purpose that surveillance like this would serve would be to intimidate political opponents.
“Today, I am calling on Governor Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer to disclose the entirety of the information that was collected including notes, data, photographs, or any other type of tracking and research. People who are protesting the Iraq war and people are opposed to abuses of animals gave the government no cause to conduct this type of surveillance and have the right to know what kinds of information their government was collecting about them. The California Legislature should investigate this to determine if there are violations of the law.
“In addition, it is disturbing that the State of California would be using private contractors to track sensitive information, and that these contractors would be so unaware of the need to respect the rights of the citizens of the State of California.
“This is yet another violation of Americans’ civil liberties under the guise of homeland security. We need both our federal and state governments to protect their citizens in a lawful way that is not a violation of individual’s rights and freedoms.”
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Posted by Peake, Amy at July 1, 06 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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