The American Civil Liberties Union wants Congress to look into a newspaper report that a group stole surveillance records of Muslims from Camp Pendleton and then passed them out. KPBS Reporter Amita Sharma has details.
The ACLU is seeking the Congressional probe after the Union-Tribune published a story about a group of reservists and law enforcement officers allegedly lifting the classified data from what's called the Strategic Technical Operations Center. Some of the documents were later found at a storage locker in Virginia. Other secret files were handed over to defense contractors in return for favors.
Local ACLU legal director David Blair-Loy says Congressional investigators should find out who authorized the surveillance and how it was stolen from a secure facility.
Blair-Loy: What Congress should do is conduct a full, fair and open investigation of what exactly the govt. had been doing to conduct surveillance on apparently innocent law abiding members of the community.
Blair-Loy says the ACLU is particularly concerned about what he describes as "excessive secrecy" surrounding government spying on Muslims.
Amita Sharma, KPBS News.
