National Guard Erases Data Related to Group Spying on US Citizens Critical of Iraq War

A few weeks ago I reported here what Mercury News had uncovered that Governor Schwarzenegger had sic’ed the California National Guard’s new Intelligence arm (that was created to thwart terrorists) on American Citizens whose only crime is that they attended a Mothers’ Day protest organized by families of fallen soldiers. These protests questioned President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. A California State Senator requested that the National Guard preserve all record related to their spying on US Citizens so that this practice could be investigated. Instead the National Guard erased the hard drive containing the details of their monitoring of US Citizens who were critical of the Bush Administration on the day that the Senator called for the records to be preserved. This Mercury News follow up gives the details of this cover up. The National Guard claims that they cannot comment on this because of a Federal Investigation. But if there really were a Federal Investigation why would they have destroyed the evidence? They further say that the timing of the wiping of the hard disk with the evidence was just coincidental. Mercury News reports, “Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project has raised concerns that the National Guard is laying the groundwork for a new domestic spying operation.” Domestic Spying on US Citizens who are critical of the President’s decision to go to war. Now why does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah, the same thing happened during Viet Nam and let to Nixon’s Enemies List and the Watergate break-in and cover up. History is repeating itself! Unfortunately, the last time we still had Free Press willing to report the wrongdoings of the Government. Now we don’t.