More one the Quaker menace

The Pentagon continues to keep records on Quaker activities on the grounds that the pacifist religious group constitutes a terrorist threat. Previously I have linked to reports that the Pentagon issued a "Threat and Local Observation Notice" (a TALON) on a meeting of Friends in Florida. The ACLU is now reporting similar TALONs have been issued for activities by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Akron, Ohio and Springfield, Mass.

These new TALONs were issued with all of the competence and sensitivity to the value of human intel we have come to expect from the Global War on Anything We Decide to Label Terrorism. First of all, they misreported the second event as being in Springfield, IL, rather than Springfield Mass. Second, the Pentagon spies apparently found out about this event through the incredibly sophisticated method of "Subscribing to the AFSC emailing list." You'd think that if they had the announcement for the event in front of them, they would get the city right.

There's a fun personal connection here, too. Molly has a lot of family who are Quakers living in the Akron area. My in-laws could be a threat to national security, with their damned nonviolence and mayonnaise heavy, Midwestern cooking.

Via John Collins on the SLU listserv.