Military Intelligence spied on American citizens in the U.S.

Some very interesting documents were declassified and made public.  Rawstory.com reports on how military intelligence spied on American citizens as part of the security preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. When military intelligence spies on American civilians they call that US persons data. They focus on the spying done on Planned Parenthood, which I think misses the larger picture.  A 284 page report, available online in pdf format is part of over 800 pages released to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

US military spied on Planned Parenthood, civilian phone calls

Rawstory.com quotes Wired's Kim Zetter who notes that military intelligence spied on civilian phone calls in 2007. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more comprehensive coverage of the issue on thier website.

Pentagon Discloses Hundreds of Reports of Possibly Illegal Intelligence Activities

The Department of Defense has released more than 800 heavily-redacted pages of intelligence oversight reports, detailing activities that its Inspector General has “reason to believe are unlawful.”

The reports, submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) by various Department of Defense components, cover the period from 2001 through 2008.

Some specific items of interest include:

A 2006 report that NORAD had procedural problems relating to collecting information on U.S. Persons.

A report from 2007 of an Army Reserve officer routinely collecting data on U.S. Persons exercising their free speech rights.

A 2008 report that Army Signals Intelligence in Louisiana intercepted civilian cell phone conversations.

A 2008 report that Army Cyber Counterintelligence officers attended the Black Hat hacker conference without disclosing their Army affiliation and without prior authorization to do so.