That's right. We have official confirmation now, not that we didn't suspect it before. From PageOneQ via Rawstory:
On April 11th PageOneQ reported that the Pentagon had admitted to conducting surveillance of groups protesting the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for gays and lesbians in the armed forces.
The new FOIA request yielded information about an undercover investigation by the Pentagon on acitivities into student groups protesting the war at State University of New York at Albany (SUNY Albany), William Paterson University in New Jersey, Southern Connecticut State University and the University of California at Berkeley, reports SLDN.
More below the fold...
The documents released today indicate that e-mails sent by various student groups were intercepted and monitored by the government and that the government collected reports from seemingly undercover agents who attended at least one student protest at Southern Connecticut State University. None of the reports in the documentation, however, indicated any terrorist activity by the students who were monitored.
Apparently the Pentagon sent agents who infiltrated these student groups and that's how they were able to monitor emails within the groups.
The Documents included monitoring of emails from other schools as well. Here is report by the TALON service of a planned protest for April 21, 2005 at the University of California at Berkeley. UC Berkeley is regarded as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, led by Mario Savio.
So to anyone who says: "Why should I be worried if I'm not doing anything wrong?" perhaps it's time to ask whether exercising peaceful protests and nonviolent civil disobedience is an activity deemed "wrong."