[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 105 (Monday, July 29, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1426-E1427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  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?

                          ____________________