Eight protests against military recruitment on college campuses were included among more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" listed in the Department of Defense's Threat and Local Observations Notice database, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Counterintelligence Field Agency compiled the 400-page document, first mentioned in a Dec. 13 report by NBC News.
Although none of the protests on the incident list occurred at AU, the issue of military recruitment on campus was a controversial topic at the beginning of the fall 2005 semester, which resulted in the passage of a bill in the General Assembly that removed military recruiters from the school.
The bill, written by Chris Sgro, the current speaker of the General Assembly, stated that because of the U.S. military's ban on openly homosexual soldiers, the presence of recruiters at AU job fairs or other events would constitute a violation of the university's non-discrimination policy. The policy specifically prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.
"I introduced the bill because the issue of removing recruiters from campus became more pressing over the summer [of 2005]," said Sgro, a senior in the School of Public Affairs.
At the time, Congress passed legislation amending the law that withholds federal funding from schools that do not allow military recruiters on campus, Sgro said. Previously, the law was not heavily enforced, and many colleges could ban recruiters. However, the law will now be more vigorously enforced, he said.
"It was something AU needed to address, since allowing the recruiters on campus would be a violation of their non-discrimination policy," Sgro said.
Protests against military recruitment occurred at AU just as at the other schools. "There were a series of protests calling for the removal of military recruiters," Sgro said. "There was even a protest at the Career Fair. Of course, all of these protests were against the policy of recruitment, not against the military itself."
The eight protests occurred at colleges and universities in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.
Only one college protest, which occurred at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California, was cited by the Pentagon as a "credible threat." The protest, held on April 5, 2005, drew more than 200 people. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the protesters stormed a job fair held on campus, vowing to stage a sit-in until military recruiters vacated the fair. An hour later, the protest ended, following the departure of the recruiters.
"We do not understand why we, who engage in peaceful protests, are considered to be 'credible threats.' Such terminology is effectively calling us terrorists," said Josh Sonnenfeld, a UC Santa Cruz student and one of the leaders of the protest, in an e-mail. "The initial reaction is to wonder how peaceful protesters can be considered 'credible threats.' However, it is also important to consider that the Pentagon may view us as a threat to military recruitment, and therefore, some sort of threat to the country. Of course, by that flawed logic, since the majority of Americans are opposed to the war, the Pentagon can see most Americans as a 'threat to the country'."
"Whether or not what the Pentagon has done violates the letter of the Constitution - it clearly is problematic in the spirit of it," said Washington College of Law professor Jamin Raskin. "It looks like the Pentagon is going into the business of monitoring politics on college campuses. Public protests are public; if the government wants to find out what is going on, they should just ask questions."
However, Raskin said, surveillance of protests is nothing new.
"The FBI worked to monitor and sabotage the peace movement during the Vietnam War," he said. "We always come to regret government obstruction of political expression."
UC Santa Cruz officials have denied that either the university or the campus police provided information to the Pentagon, according to several press releases.
Several members of Congress, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California), have called for investigations into the use of the TALON database.
"I am concerned that the information collected and retained by [the Department of Defense] may have been collected in violation of its own regulations," said Lofgren in a letter to Thomas Gimble, acting inspector general for the Department of Defense.
While the Pentagon's surveillance of college protests is disconcerting, Sonnenfeld said, it is not going to deter him from continuing to protest.
"The fact that the Pentagon has been spying on us only emboldens students to become even more politically active," he said. "This is the type of horrendous activity that forces people to leave their chairs and join the masses in the streets."
Sgro agreed.
"[The spying] makes me even more likely to protest," he said. "I feel more strongly about this issue than I did before.
