Deja Vu

You know it's a sad day when it's difficult to keep track of which government agencies are spying on which Americans. In our offices, we have actually been heard to say, "Now which spying case is this again?"

In the past couple of months, it's been shown that the NSA has been illegally wiretapping US citizens, and that the Pentagon has been keeping a database on anti-war protestors and groups who protest at recruiting stations (although the latter story received little press attention).

Now these are not to be confused with the FBI's misuse of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to engage in surveillance of non-violent activist groups. In Colorado, for instance, one memo the ACLU obtained indicated an ongoing federal interest in Food Not Bombs, a group that provides free vegetarian food to hungry people and protests war and poverty.

Clearly the powers that be were not history majors, and we're now doomed to repeat the abuses of power of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Sara in Philly