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WESTERN GOALS:
A GARAGE FULL OF POLICE FILES,
AND A MYSTERIOUS PC
THE REAGAN RESPONSE TO "WATERGATE" REFORMS
APPROACHING THE ORWELLIAN NIGHTMARE
There is increasing use of computers by local police departments in each
state with direct access to telecommunications systems.
This could easily become a nationwide computerized network used to collect
and compare information in both the FBI and other computerized law enforcement
files," says Sheila O'Donnell, co-founder of the Public Eye magazine. "Agencies
at all levels of government can now be tied into a nationwide intelligence
network of dossiers on political dissidents and, in fact, on every American
citizen."
What may develop, then, are two parallel computerized political intelligence
networks - one public, one private - that share information about political
activists and have direct access to modern data banks as well as to the
files compiled during the McCarthy period.
"We fear there will soon be a complete integration of the public
and private political intelligence apparatus," says attorney Matthew
J. Piers, the former chairman of the National Lawyers Guild Civil Liberties
Committee. "This network will then be unleashed first against persons
accused of having ties to unpopular foreign governments or affiliated with
alleged terrorist groups," says Piers, "but inevitably the public-private
network will move on to investigate and disrupt the activities of a wide
range of community, labor and political activists.
WESTERN GOALS:
A GARAGE FULL OF POLICE FILES, AND
A MYSTERIOUS PC
In Los Angeles, the "Police Department's recently disbanded Public
Intelligence Division spent some 12 years spying on city council members,
judges, local Police Commission members and community groups," writes
David Kaplan.
The files collected by the police were supposed to have been destroyed.
Apparently, they were not. A Los Angeles ACLU lawsuit continues to uncover
an elaborately-concealed relationship between the Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) and a private right-wing think tank, the Western Goals Foundation,
based in Virginia.
Suspended Los Angeles Police Detective Jay Paul is accused of storing
a mountain of LAPD spy files at his home and leaking the contents of the
sensitive material to the Western Goals Foundation through a computer financed
by the Foundation and located at the office of Paul's wife, Ann Love. Love
had a $2,500 per month contract with Western Goals for unspecified computer
services. Paul denied that any LAPD spy files were laundered into the Western
Goals computer database, but the Los Angeles ACLU has filed a lawsuit based
on that very supposition.
The ACLU has sought the deposition of a former Western Goals staffer John
Rees, who recently left the Foundation following a policy dispute. Rees
sought to block the deposition but has been ordered to answer questions
in the ACLU case.
As the case progresses, further revelations about the relationship between
private spy groups, public police agencies and computers are expected.
THE REAGAN RESPONSE TO "WATERGATE" REFORMS
Dick Criley is just one of many civil libertarians who fears the Reagan
Administration is not sensitive to privacy issues:
"In the 1980s...the trend toward greater freedom is being reversed
once again. In December 1981, President Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) to engage in domestic spying again, (Executive Order 12333)
despite Congress's original intent to limit the CIA to intelligence collection
abroad."
"In April 1981, the President established new rules for classification
of documents, severely limiting the right of public access, emphasizing
'security' interests in more secrecy, making declassification more difficult,
and permitting reclassification of documents that had previously been released
to the public. Since classified documents are exempt from the Freedom of
Information Act, President Reagan's order has greatly reduced the amount
of information previously available to citizens."
The Reagan administration is being pushed to eliminate more restrictions
on governmental investigative agencies that were the post-Watergate answer
to protecting Constitutional rights.
Recently Congress exempted all CIA operation files from the Federal Freedom
of Information Act. Ironically, the exemption bill language was formulated
with the assistance of several high officials of the American Civil Liberties
Union who thought they were mitigating even worse language. The controversy
that arose when Angus McKenzie of the Center for Investigative Reporting
revealed the negotiations forced the national ACLU Board to vote to oppose
the final bill, but not in time to rally civil liberties forces - the bill
was passed and signed into law earlier this year. Previous | TOC | Next |
