“Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a ’security threat’ because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.One of the possible ‘crimes’ in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: ‘civil rights.’ According to hundreds of pages of newly obtained police documents, the groups were swept into a broad surveillance operation that started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row. The operation has been called a ‘waste of resources’ by the current police superintendent and ‘undemocratic’ by the governor.” (01/04/09)