History should remind gays and lesbians about the dangers of the government's secret spying on American citizens.
THERE WAS A LOT OF nervous energy around the military recruiting tables at the University of California at Santa Cruz last April.
About 300 students from the campus group Students Against War had shown up as part of a protest to focus attention on the military's discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian soldiers.
That day, the students, many of whom were gay or lesbian, had gathered in hopes of highlighting the military's unfair rule about gay and lesbian military personnel, and thus preventing other students from talking to or signing up with Pentagon representatives.
Those gathered that day began by circling the tables occupied by the military recruiters. They conducted what they called an 'anti-military teach-in,' handing out information on topics ranging from the detrimental effects of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to their opposition to the war in Iraq.
According to the protestors, they succeeded in blocking virtually any enlisting efforts by the Pentagon, and the military recruiters left in frustration.
About six months later, in October 2005, tensions on campus were running much higher. Members of Students Against War had gathered to stage yet another rally against military recruiters on campus.
This time, in order to draw specific attention to the unfairness of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' about two dozen students had entered the building where military recruiters were set up, and held a same-sex kiss-in. An additional 200 students gathered in a rally outside the building.
But due to all the attention and success of the previous protest, the university deployed heavy security to the site, and barred cameras and signs from inside the building. The administration explained it wanted to carefully monitor the event.
They weren't the only ones with watchful eyes. As first reported by NBC, it turns out that the Pentagon was involved in secretly spying on the student protestors at Santa Cruz. Press reports have revealed that military documents describe the protests as a 'credible threat' of terrorism that could compromise national security.
And the Santa Cruz protestors aren't the only ones under the Pentagon's Big Brother gaze.
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IN FEBRUARY 2005, ABOUT 60 people gathered to protest military recruitment at New York University law school. For years, students had opposed military recruiters on campus, specifically because of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. The protests were organized by the gay and lesbian student law group, OUTLaw.
Though no OUTLaw protest has ever resulted in harm or injury to anyone, or even an arrest, the secret Pentagon report on the incident classified the group as 'possibly violent.'
Add to the list of government terror suspects worshippers at a Quaker meeting house in Lake Worth, Fla.; demonstrators from the Broward Anti-War Coalition who assembled outside a military recruiting office at a strip mall in Lauderhill, Fla.; protestors handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in front of a Halliburton office in Houston as a way of highlighting what they say is the company's 'war profiteering' from food contracts to the military in Iraq; members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who were organizing a vegan conference by distributing vegetarian starter kits at the University of Indiana; the Catholic Workers Group, a Los Angeles-based organization that believes in civil disobedience and protest through prayer; and people involved in the political party, Greenpeace.
All of these people have ended up on what only recently became disclosed as the Pentagon's secret spying program, known by operation code name TALON, short for Threat and Local Observation Notice.
What's more frightening is that a list of probably unknown thousands of other innocent and peaceful Americans are also on the list.
It's part of a larger, alarming pattern of secret spying on American citizens by our own government.
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THE PENTAGON'S SPYING EFFORTS CAME to light on the heels of a report by The New York Times that revealed another domestic espionage program: Since 2002, President Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of American citizens in the United States without obtaining a warrant from a special surveillance court. This order was given despite a law that specifically prohibits the government from taking such action.
In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prohibits the government from spying on Americans without obtaining a warrant from a special secret court.
It's not difficult to get the needed warrant: In the history of FISA, only five requests for domestic spying have ever been denied.
Under FISA, the government is allowed to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans within the first 15 days of a war. It can even go ahead and immediately start spying on suspected terrorists, and file for the warrant afterwards.
So there is no acceptable rationale for the government to be engaged in illegal spying on American citizens.
It is a grave threat to our political freedoms and the freedom of speech that most of us take for granted.
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AS AMERICAN CITIZENS, AND PARTICULARLY as gay and lesbian people, we would do well to remember just why FISA was enacted.
In the McCarthy era, the government kept long lists of 'suspected Communists,' and used that information ( much of it erroneous ) as a way to manipulate and control political dissenters.
In the 1960s, political protestors, including civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., were routinely under surveillance. The government at times tried to use this information in a game of political blackmail, threatening to disclose personal details collected from spying on activists as a way to dissuade them from their political activity.
And during the Vietnam War, the government routinely collected information against American anti-war protestors who were deemed 'un-American' and 'un-patriotic.'
The government has a long history of spying on gay and lesbian political activists, too.
In 1961, the FBI investigated meetings of the Mattachine Society, one of the country's first organized gay-rights groups. In 1965, government agents took photos of protestors at the first public demonstration of gay and lesbian people in front of the White House. And old-time activists still remember the days when the FBI routinely followed them around.
Luckily, at least one gay group realizes the gravity of being spied on by the government, and how it can cast a chilling effect on free speech and political activity.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington D.C.-based group that fights the military's ban on gay soldiers, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn if it or other gay groups are being spied on by the Bush administration.
The president and his apologists already have come up with all kinds of convoluted excuses for why he is flaunting the law and ordering illegal spying on Americans.
But we should see through this dangerous power play and insist that our government stop undermining the Constitution.
The government has no legitimate reason to spy on citizens without court approval. Secretive surveillance is a dangerous tool that can too easily lead to squashing political dissent and unpopular political speech.
Santa Cruz students kissing members of the same sex in front of military recruiters is no threat to our security or freedoms. But a government that spies secretly on such displays of political protest certainly is.
