On one side the government, the other the mob *...

The San Francisco Police Department has been monitoring a radical Web site [SFIMC], using undercover officers to spy on antiwar protesters, and apparently collecting personal information about political dissidents, the Bay Guardian has learned.

The San Francisco Police Department has been monitoring a radical Web site, using undercover officers to spy on antiwar protesters, and apparently collecting personal information about political dissidents, the Bay Guardian has learned.

A confidential police memo, part of a dossier obtained under the Sunshine Ordinance, acknowledges that at least some of the activities appear to violate the department's own rules.

The internal SFPD documents and a new audit performed by the city's police watchdog agency, the Office of Citizen Complaints, indicate the department has been gathering intelligence on the militant wing of the antiwar movement since last fall. Taken as a whole, the documents suggest some SFPD commanders may have orchestrated a secret spying program without the knowledge of top police officials.

"Undercover surveillance was requested and conducted at anti-war demonstrations on October 26, 2002, January 18, 2003 and February 16, 2003 without proper authorization by the Chief of Police," the OCC audit states.

Approval for the operations went up as high as deputy chiefs David Robinson and Greg Suhr, both of whom are under indictment for their alleged involvement in the Union Street beating scandal, documents show.

Welcome to Bush's America.

and this.

Show of force.

This is what we have come to.


*Comin' Apart At Every Nail-Neil Young