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Show Military spies on asses "Do we have to destroy our liberty in order to save it?" asked NBC correspondent Tom Petit in a speech before the Utah Civil Liberties Union Saturday night. The military surveilance of civilians civi-lians was the main topic of discussion dis-cussion in which Mr. Petit spoke of his experience in gathering information in-formation for the program, First Tuesday. The military became interested in civilian activities when they were called in to quell the Detroit riots in 1967, Mr. Petit said. At that time President Johnson told the Defense Department to prepare to be able to handle riots in 20 cities simultaneously. The information that was collected was stored in a fort near Baltimore, Balti-more, Maryland with secondary files in Washington D.C., he added. Mr. Petit stated that he didn't know who was responsible for setting up the criteria for surveilance, survei-lance, but whoever deviated from the norm was put under surveilance. survei-lance. This included such people as Dick Gregory, Sen. Fulbright and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. By the end of 1967 agents had infiltrated into every aspect of civilian life, Mr. Petit explained. During the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., agents infiltrated the line of march and the crowds gathered along the line of march. The absurdity of this interpretation inter-pretation of command was seen, Mr. Petit said, during the Poor People Campaign in which there was a detail assigned to watch the mules in the mule train. They reported on such tilings as whether the mules were shod and how long they could go on certain feed. Agents were also assigned to surveil the grave of Dr. King and report back on who visited it and what they said. Mr. Petit urged people to write to Sen. Sam Ervin and support the investigation that his sub-committee is going to launch into the question of army surveilance of civilians. On die day the First Tuesday program dealing with this program was to be aired NBC received a protest from the Pentagon. They were protesting that NBC had improperly edited remarks by the Assistant Secreatary of Defense for Public Information. This is the only tiling they could find wrong in the program, which Mr. Petit interpreted as an acknowledgement acknowledge-ment that all the charges about surveilance were true. Student membership in the ACLU is three dollars. For further information contact Mrs. Richard Young 11 South Wolcott or call 521-2957. . |
