June 27, 2005 – A unit within the California National Guard that has been given "broad authority" to work on terrorist-related intelligence matters put a Mother’s Day anti-war rally under observation, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday.
Emails obtained by the Mercury News demonstrate that officials in the state National Guard’s intelligence unit, known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, were communicating about details of the rally after being notified by governor Arnold Schwarzennegger’s office that it was to occur.
A spokesperson for the National Guard told the Mercury News that no agents from the unit attended the rally -- which reportedly had a few dozen participants and was organized by Code Pink, the Raging Grannies and the Goldstar Families for Peace, among others -- but that such information tracking was justified and would likely continue in cases where the governor could potentially call out the guard for crowd control.
"It's nothing subversive,'' Lieutenant Stan Zezotarski told the paper. "Because who knows who could infiltrate that type of group and try to stir something up? After all, we live in the age of terrorism, so who knows?"
The new revelation comes just days after the Mercury News reported that the Army Inspector General’s office was investigating the California National Guard over allegations against its former head, Major General Thomas Eres. Eres initiated the intelligence unit last year, the paper reported.
