Senator ties Guard to spy plan

MEMOS SUGGEST NATIONWIDE EFFORT

By Edwin Garcia
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - A special California National Guard unit that was disbanded last year amid suspicion it was engaged in domestic spying may have been part of a nationwide effort to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens, a state senator charged Tuesday.

Internal National Guard documents seem to suggest, according to Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, that Guard units in nine other states may have had similar spying initiatives when California's unit became public last summer.

``Because they were all created at about the same time and, to the best of our knowledge thus far seemingly engaged in similar activity, including domestic surveillance activities,'' Dunn said, ``we could only conclude that it had been part of a concentrated or coordinated effort to create such units around the country.''

A Guard official denied the allegations, and said three independent investigations cleared the California National Guard's Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion unit. Spokesman Jon Siepmann also denied the program ever conducted surveillance on U.S. citizens.