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(Washington) The National Security Agency has refused to say if it is collecting information an members of the LGBT community for gay civil rights organizations.
The agency was one of a number of government entities which the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and about a dozen other LGBT groups sought information under the Freedom of Information Act following news reports the Bush administration was conducting domestic spying on gay groups.
In a June 5 letter to the attorney for SLDN, the National Security Agency said it will “neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence” of information that may have been obtained through agency surveillance of the LGBT.
Last December media reports said that the Pentagon has been spying on “suspicious” meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military’s "don't ask, don't tell."
The reports said that the Pentagon had spied on New York University law school’s LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw and gay groups at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey.
In February, the DoD acknowledged in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it had ‘inappropriately’ collected information on protestors but did not name any of the organizations.
That same month the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and about a dozen other LGBT groups filed a lawsuit to obtain information related to the government’s domestic spy program when the Pentagon turned down a Freedom of Information Act request.
The DoD has since turned over some documents showing that several college groups opposed to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" have been investigated. The Justice Department is expected to turn over its documents later this month.
The NSA, however, refuses to reveal any information.
"2006 is the new 1984,” SLDN executive director C. Dixon Osburn said on Tuesday.
"The federal government’s Orwellian surveillance programs of ordinary, law-abiding citizens violates our right to privacy under current law. The government’s refusal to disclose its surveillance programs erodes the public trust.”
In its letter, the NSA said that "any substantive response to [the original] request would tend to confirm or deny specific activities.”
The SLDN has up to five years to appeal the NSA’s response.
©365Gay.com 2006
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