I previously posted about military surveillance of “don’t ask, don’t tell” college protests here after reading a post by Denise at Life, Law, Gender.

Yesterday, AScribe, a public interest newswire, featured an article titled “Military Surveillance of Gay Student Groups Recalls McCarthy Era Crackdowns; Historians React to Secret Pentagon Database.” Excerpts:

…according to David K. Johnson, a historian at University of South Florida and author of “The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government,” the banner of “national security” has long been used as a pretext to crack down on gay rights and even to spark moral crusades against homosexuality under the guise of national defense…

…Dr. Johnson said the Pentagon’s spying is the latest in a long history of targeting gays and lesbians as subversives despite lacking any evidence for such a charge. “It’s no surprise,” he said. “The federal government began spying on those who challenged its discriminatory policies from the very earliest days of such activism.” He said the FBI investigated the first organizational meeting in 1961 of what became the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest gay rights groups. Government agents took photographs in 1965 at the first gay and lesbian public demonstration in front of the White House against the military’s exclusionary policies. “What is surprising,” he said, “is that in nearly a half century of undercover intelligence gathering, they haven’t yet figured out that these are always peaceful, lawful protests…”

Read a University of Chicago Press interview with David Johnson here.