If You've Never Done So...

It is clearly time to write your various representatives in Congress and Demand an immediate investigation into this:

The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday.

The database, obtained by the network, lists 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the United States over a 10-month period and includes four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting, NBC's Nightly News said.

Now look, I understand the need to look for terrorist threats, but that is not exactly what was going on here according to NBC:

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” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

Was that a 'suspicious incident'? Yes, but only in terms of what the government was doing. As for why this is important for us, well here you go:

The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.”

It went on, "The protest in Hollywood, however, was an ugly display as the latte-swilling, prius driving, chomskyite, actors and writers turned on their own MSM ('mainstream media') colleagues at CNN and then all purchased used CDs at Amoeba and took in a movie at the Arclight"... oh sorry, I think that is what I did.

Anyways, if you've never written to your various representatives I think now is the time. Not sure who they are? Well you can locate your Senators here and your Representatives in the House here. Be sure you let them know how deeply disturbing this is.