What is particularly worrisome right now is that the National Counterterrorism Center, which was set up as part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is now working to conglomerate all of these databases and that the Counterintelligence Field Activities, CIFA of the Department of Defense, is working to ensure that the military gains access to all of these databases, as well. So each of these, which goes into the creation of various watch lists and various tip-offs for the military or the intelligence community to surveil certain people, that determine the key words that the NSA or the F.B.I. then uses in its surveillance to catch certain emails or certain telephone conversations or certain international communications, all of these are now becoming more and more efficiently employed, the notion being that somehow we're going to catch the next Mohammed Atta, but the reality being that huge numbers of innocent, non-threatening American citizens are being sweeped up in this gigantic swirl.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But what's been the role or what should be the role of Congress in all of this, given the fact that at least you would think the libertarian trend within the conservative Republican movement would be aghast at this development, this continuing development of this enormous surveillance operation?

WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, my guess will be that Congress will gingerly handle this matter. There was some complaint issued yesterday by Bill Nelson of Florida in response to the Lake Worth surveillance. Other usual suspects will speak out, but, you know, look, as long as we pledge allegiance to 9/11, it's going to be pretty tough for Congress people to question the validity of the notion that the United States is just another battlefield in the war on terrorism. And that is the sort of premise that we operate under, which provides both the threat picture and the mission responsibility for the military and the intelligence community to undertake activities in the United States in fighting the war on terrorism. No one wants to be responsible for missing the next dot that could be connected to the other dots.

So, I think that what we're seeing in this debate about domestic spying that has sort of come out of nowhere in the last couple of weeks, and what we're seeing in John Murtha's breaking ranks with the administration on Iraq and the 9/11 Commission's continuing work itself, is, I think, the beginning of a questioning of some of the very fundamental premises behind the war on terrorism, and until we are able to have that debate, I find it unlikely that the Pentagon's review of this matter is going to result in anything beyond some wrist-slapping and some promises that they'll tweak the rules.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Arkin, we want to thank you for joining us and for getting these Pentagon documents, this database of about 400 pages that show scores of anti-war groups, particularly anti-recruiting groups, being monitored by the Pentagon around the country.

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