Monday, February 08, 2010

So what's Dept. of homeland Security been doing that it shouldn't

that we don't know about?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security.

The DHS destroyed or deleted its copies of the assessment after an internal review found it violated intelligence-gathering guidelines by collecting and sharing information about "protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security," according to a department memo written last year
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Bunch of asshole bureaucrats with lots of power and not enough- not nearly enough- ethics and "This is NOT our job" sense.

Oh, and the police department that this was shared with?
After The New York Times reported on its contents in December, a lawyer representing anti-abortion activists who attended the rally asked Middleton police to release a copy of the assessment under Wisconsin's open records law.

In the department's Feb. 4 response, Capt. Noel Kakuske confirmed the department kept a copy of the report but declined to release it. He said the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which runs the intelligence center, and the Department of Homeland Security agreed the report should be withheld because it contains sensitive law enforcement information
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Well, isn't that just wonderful and convenient? DHS 'destroyed'* the report but the PD kept it. And now, well, "We can't let you see it. Because you're just peasants, not Only Ones. And you can't make us. So there."

Which will last until the lawsuits start, at least.
"It's very disturbing that a local police department has tapped into the security apparatus of the federal government to potentially obstruct free speech," she said. "It's additionally disconcerting they will not release the documents in order for we the public to examine them."
You folks need to deal with the idiots in our police department. And we need to yell at our congresscritters about the dirtbags at DHS who did this.

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