The AP reports:
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.
The report was only shared with police in Middleton and with the director of the Wisconsin Statewide Information Center, an intelligence-gathering hub, according to the memo, which was signed by general counsel Ivan Fong and inspector general Richard Skinner.
It concluded the report was unlikely to “have any impact on civil liberties or civil rights” given its limited dissemination. But anti-abortion groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin on Monday both criticized the federal government’s collection of information on law-abiding protesters.
The people running our government today would surely claim to favor free speech and freedom of association. I’m sure they would be outraged if the DHS had compiled dossiers on peaceful anti-war protesters. But they have a peculiar moral blindness; they just don’t see those principles as applying to their political opponents. That makes them dangerous, because when it comes to their opponents, there’s no telling what they’ll be willing to do.
(Via Instapundit.)
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