Why is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office spying on you?  Arnold is releasing a bucketload of documents for reporters to review, and claims it was an oversight by an independent contractor:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said Saturday he was ordering the release of dozens of intelligence reports prepared for the state Office of Homeland Security — a step that comes as lawmakers from both parties are denouncing a practice in which state intelligence agents compiled information about political and antiwar protests and rallies.

Schwarzenegger administration officials say there were only two cases in which state homeland security agents collected material on political protests in recent months. Releasing the full trove of intelligence reports will prove that point, assuring the public that the practice was not more widespread, according to those officials.
(LA Times 7/2/06)

More on the flip…

So, you ask, just who is he spying on?  Well, George Miller, the Alameda County Congressman, for one.

Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) said in an interview that there should be a “very, very high threshold” for removing anything and that the reports should not be sanitized. The congressman attended an antiwar rally in Walnut Creek in March that was listed in one of the intelligence reports, in a section called “Upcoming California Protests.”

You would think that this is an outlier. A one-off bad incident.  It will never happen again.  Except that it’s happened before, and the department assure the legislature that it wouldn’t happen again.

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), who led the hearings on the National Guard, said the homeland security episode is fresh proof of the need for greater oversight.

Dunn said he wants to create a special legislative intelligence committee that would monitor California’s fast-growing homeland security apparatus. Lawmakers serving on the committee would receive a special security clearance. He said he has broached the idea with the Senate leadership.

“I am very pleased that they’re willing to share all the reports,” Dunn said. “However, I was assured after the one spying incident in May 2005 by the California National Guard that the practice was not more widespread at the state level. We now discover that those assurances were patently false. I hope the current assurances are a little more truthful than the ones of a year ago.”

First of all, I’m more than a little bit troubled that we have some outside private contractor conducting spying missions on the people of California.  Isn’t that the job of this “homeland security” infrastructure?  And then, of course, there is the general idea of spying on anti-war protesters.  Is there a reason for this at all?  Assumptions of anti-Bush positions?

Arnold himself needs to promise that this will never happen again.  Dunn’s idea of legislative oversight is an important first step to assure the privacy of all Californians.