Is the NSA Spy On Environmental Activists?

It would be astonishing if the FBI hasn't been spying on activists of all kinds, even if the White House and NSA don't know it. There is often little cooperation between different intelligence agencies, so the FBI might not share info with the NSA. This impedes protecting us from terrorists, but I can also see that people in these agencies would be concerned about whether info could be obtained by those who would harm the U.S. No easy answers. But spying on agencies like the Sierra Club, unless there was some specific info that warranted it, is a waste of resources, that should go to places it would be useful.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/03/2165561/government-spying-environmental-activists/

By Andrea Peterson on Jul 3, 2013

The surveillance programs revealed in the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks last month appear to be primarily focused on terrorism. Details of domestic communications were gathered to create a database for that purpose. But with the government increasingly classifying peaceful protest movements as potential terrorist threats, does that mean environmental activists could be spied on?

Nafeez Ahmed at The Guardian pointed out that internal reports and documents about U.S. military preparedness for emergency situations have started including planning for domestic unrest related to climate change disasters. Also, since the economic crash in 2008, the U.S. security apparatus has placed a significant amount of scrutiny on political activists — often in conjunction with corporate interests.

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Documents released by Bold Nebraska, a group opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, suggest that corporate interests are working with local law enforcement and the FBI to push for the application of “anti-terrorism laws” against activists.

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Sadly, the classification of climate activists as terrorists is not a new phenomenon — nor is the surveillance of them as such. Three activists with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network were watched for thirteen months starting in March 2005 after being placed in a Maryland State Police data base as being “suspected of involvement in terrorism” although the police had “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime.” The state eventually realized their error and offered the activists a chance to review the information collected about them, but the fact remains that their non-violent activism made them a target for government surveillance.

To be clear, there’s no evidence at this point to show that the NSA is using its broad anti-terrorism surveillance powers to pursue climate activists

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