[Congressional Record: July 29, 2002 (Extensions)]
[Page E1426-E1427]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr29jy02-51]
CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES AND THE COSTS OF WAR AGAINST TERRORISM ACT
______
HON. CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY
of georgia
in the house of representatives
Friday, July 26, 2002
Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, the attacks of September 11th, 2001 caused
significant changes throughout our society. For our military services,
this included increased force protection, greater security, and of
course the deployment to and prosecution of the War on Terrorism in
Afghanistan and elsewhere. Sadly, one of the first acts of our
President was to waive the high deployment overtime pay of our
servicemen and women who are serving on the front lines of our new War.
The Navy estimates that the first year costs of this pay would equal
about 40 cruise missiles. The total cost of this overtime pay may only
equal about 300 cruise missiles, yet this Administration said it would
cost too much to pay our young men and women what the Congress and the
previous Administration had promised them.
In another ironic twist, the War on Terrorism has the potential to
bring the U.S. military into American life as never before. A Northern
Command has been created to manage the military's activity within the
continental United States. Operation Noble Eagle saw combat aircraft
patrolling the air above major metropolitan areas, and our airports are
only now being relieved of National Guard security forces. Moreover,
there is a growing concern that the military will be used domestically,
within our borders, with intelligence and law enforcement mandates as
some now call for a review of the Posse Comitatus Act prohibitions on
military activity within our country.
In the 1960s, the lines between illegal intelligence, law enforcement
and military practices became blurred as Americans wanting to make
America a better place for all were targeted and attacked for political
beliefs and political behavior. Under the cloak of the Cold War,
military intelligence was used for domestic purposes to conduct
surveillance on civil rights, social equity, antiwar, and other
activists. In the case of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Operation
Lantern Spike involved military intelligence covertly operating a
surveillance operation of the civil rights leader up to the time of his
assassination. In a period of two months, recently declassified
documents on Operation Lantern Spike indicate that 240 military
personnel were assigned in the two months of March and April to conduct
surveillance on Dr. King. The documents further reveal that 16,900 man-
hours were spent on this assignment. Dr. King had done nothing more
than call for black suffrage, an end to black poverty, and an end to
the Vietnam War. Dr. King was the lantern of justice for America:
spreading light on issues the Administration should have been
addressing. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King's valuable point of light was
snuffed out. The documents I have submitted for the record outline the
illegal activities of the FBI and its ColntelPro program. A 1967 memo
from J. Edgar Hoover to 22 FBI field offices outlined the COINTELPRO
program well: ``The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is
to expose, disrupt, misdirect, or otherwise neutralize'' black activist
leaders and organizations.
As a result of the Church Committee hearings, we later learned that
the FBI and other government authorities were conducting black bag
operations that included illegally breaking and entering private homes
to collect information on individuals. FBI activities included ``bad
jacketing,'' or falsely accusing individuals of collaboration with the
authorities. It included the use of paid informants to set up on false
charges targeted individuals. And it resulted in the murder of some
individuals. Geronimo Pratt Ji Jaga spent 27 years in prison for a
crime he did not commit. And in COINTELPRO documents subsequently
released, we learn that Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed while his
pregnant wife slept next to him after a paid informant slipped drugs in
his drink.
Needless to say, such operations were well outside the bounds of what
normal citizens would believe to be the role of the military, and the
Senate investigations conducted by Senator Frank Church found that to
be true. Though the United States was fighting the spread of communism
in the face of the Cold War, the domestic use of intelligence and
military assets against its own civilians was unfortunately reminiscent
of the police state built up by the Communists we were fighting.
We must be certain that the War on Terrorism does not threaten our
liberties again. Amendments to H.R. 4547, the Costs of War Against
Terrorism Act, that would increase the role of drug interdiction task
forces to include counter intelligence, and that would increase the
military intelligence's ability to conduct electronic and financial
investigations, can be the first steps towards a return to the abuses
of constitutional rights during the Cold War. Further, this bill
includes nearly $2 billion in additional funds for intelligence
accounts. When taken into account with the extra-judicial incarceration
of thousands of immigration violators, the transfer of prisoners from
law enforcement custody to military custody, and the consideration of a
``volunteer'' terrorism tip program, America must stand up and protect
itself from the threat not only of terrorism, but of a police state of
its own.
[[Page E1427]]
There does exist a need to increase personnel pay accounts, replenish
operations and maintenance accounts and replace lost equipment. The
military has an appropriate role in protecting the United States from
foreign threats, and should remain dedicated to preparing for those
threats. Domestic uses of the military have long been prohibited for
good reason, and the same should continue to apply to all military
functions, especially any and all military intelligence and
surveillance. Congress and the Administration must be increasingly
vigilant towards the protection of and adherence to our constitutional
rights and privileges. For, if we win the war on terrorism, but create
a police state in the process, what have we won?
____________________
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