Schiff wants to know whether spy agency provided information on protesters
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee asked the Pentagon's top intelligence official on Monday whether any combat-support intelligence agency has been used to provide information to the military or federal law enforcement responding to nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.
The letter from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Joseph Kernan sought assurance that the Pentagon was not providing such support, including to track protesters.
Schiff's letter comes in the wake of President Donald Trump threatening to mobilize the military to enforce order among protesters. And it comes a week after images of the National Guard and several federal law enforcement agencies using force to disperse protesters gathered at Lafayette Square in front of the White House.
"The sudden and impulsive manner in which the armed forces and law enforcement components from across the federal government have been mobilized to date, and the lack of public transparency regarding their orders . . . is deeply troubling," Schiff said.
A Pentagon official said Kernan had received the letter but declined to comment on correspondence with Congress.
Other Democrats have raised concerns about federal law enforcement possibly conducting surveillance on Americans engaging in peaceful protests. Last week, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security after it flew a surveillance drone over protests in Minneapolis on May 29.
There is no indication that Pentagon intelligence agencies such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which provides satellite and other overhead imagery, furnished support to any units responding to the protests.
The NGA has been used to help the military in responding to disasters, and it played a significant role in delivering information during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 on where to build levees and where the damage was most severe.
But Schiff wants assurance that no intelligence was used to monitor peaceful protesters. He also wants to know whether any Pentagon agencies have received inquiries or requests of any kind from the Trump administration or any federal department to begin planning for such activity.
"The American people deserve, and expect, that the [intelligence community] will scrupulously honor its obligation to respect their civil liberties when conducting its vital mission of keeping our nation safe," he wrote.