Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore seeks meeting with director of NSA

Friends,

The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore intends to be at the National Security Agency on July 4 at 9 AM. RSVP if interested in joining us. We will meet at AFSC, 4806 York Road , at 8 AM and depart at 8:15 AM. Or you could meet us in the visitor’s parking lot at 9 AM. We will end the demonstration at 10 AM and return to Baltimore for a potluck brunch.

Kagiso, Max

Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore

325 East 25^th Street

Baltimore, MD 21218

July 1, 2008

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander

Director, National Security Agency

Chief, Central Security Service

National Security Agency

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755

Dear General Alexander:

As members of a peace and justice group with grave concern for the National Security Agency’s role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, we wrote to you on July 1, 2007 requesting a meeting: “In light of the alarming revelations regarding the illegal wiretapping and wholesale collection of Americans’ phone records, infiltration of peace groups opposed to the policies of this government and the NSA’s surveillance of our group, we request that you meet with us to discuss these issues. We believe that the NSA, which has conducted covert and illegal operations against U.S. citizens, may be involved in other illegal practices.”

You never responded to last year’s letter. So we are renewing our request for a meeting.

The NSA continues to be an integral part of this administration’s methodical and purposeful destruction of our civil liberties and infringements on Constitutionally-protected dissent. In an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic phone and email traffic without a warrant. He replied, “I wouldn’t rule it out.” In his confirmation hearings to become the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, declared that only “reasonableness” and not a warrant was necessary to conduct warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens.

As you are aware, the NSA sees our group as a threat to its security that it is willing to waste time and taxpayers’ money monitoring us. The Pledge of Resistance engages in nonviolent action and its members are citizen activists who want to hold government officials accountable for illegal activities.

The NSA is involved in the illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq , a country which was no threat to the USA . The NSA, along with the CIA and the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, betrayed everything this country is supposed to represent when it played along with Mr. Bush in his ever-shifting quest for plausible reasons to invade Iraq . Rather than refuse to provide the cover Mr. Bush needed for his illegal invasion, the NSA and the CIA twisted the intelligence.

General Hayden played a key role in crafting Colin Powell’s February, 2003 speech before the UN. In response to Sen. Carl Levin's question about the legal standard for declassifying information in the public interest, Hayden said, "We used that in Powell's speech. George [Tenet] had to call me for three tapes." General Hayden was instrumental in providing false information to Colin Powell, at Mr. Bush’s request, so that the invasion of Iraq could proceed. Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were found. And as the peace movement predicted – civil war, the breakup of the country and the destruction of Iraqi society – did happen. So the NSA is complicit in possibly the worst foreign policy debacle in our history.

Also the NSA was involved in the wiretapping of the UN Security Council in 2003. The NSA asked British intelligence to tap the phones of the UN Security Council members’ offices so the US would know how each country would vote on the resolution to invade Iraq . Luckily, Katherine Gunn, a courageous British intelligence linguist, alerted the world to that illegal operation.

General Alexander, we wish to discuss these critically important matters with you. Also we would appreciate if the NSA would turn over all files on Baltimore-area peace and justice organizations. As you know, the American Civil Liberties Union, on our behalf, filed a suit last month in federal court to obtain information that the Maryland State Police are refusing to release. A similar strategy may be pursued with your agency.

Our system of government, based on laws and checks and balances, hangs by a thread. As concerned citizens, we will continue our efforts to challenge government agencies which show a disdain for the Constitution. We are available at your convenience and look forward to hearing from you about a meeting.

In peace,

Max Obuszewski, for the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore

410-366-1637

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center , 325 E. 25th St. , Baltimore , MD 21218 . Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs