Associated Press
July 18, 2005
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/12157316.htm
FBI says it has files on rights groups
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files
relating
to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy
groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.
The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and
Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The
organizations
contend that the material will show that they have been subjected to
scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.
The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages
about
Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU
files
and until June to review the Greenpeace documents, the government said
in a
filing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The FBI has not said specifically what those pages contain. The ACLU's
executive director, Anthony Romero, said the disclosure indicates that
the
FBI is monitoring organizations that are engaging in lawful conduct.
"I know for an absolute fact that we have not been involved in anything
related to promoting terrorism and yet the government has collected
almost
1,200 pages on our activities," Romero said. "Why is the ACLU now the
subject of scrutiny from the FBI?"
John Passacantando, Greenpeace's U.S. executive director, said his
group is
a forceful, but peaceful, critic of the Bush administration's war and
environmental policies.
"This administration has a history of using its powers against its
peaceful
critics. If, in fact, the FBI has been deployed to help in that effort,
that
would be quite shocking," Passacantando said.
Justice Department and FBI spokesmen declined to comment, citing the
ongoing
case. The FBI has denied singling out individuals or groups for
surveillance
or investigation based solely on activities protected by the
Constitution's
guarantees of free speech.
Officials have said agents adhere strictly to Justice Department
guidelines
requiring evidence of criminal activity or indications that a person may
know something about a crime.
The ACLU has sought FBI files on a range of individuals and groups
interviewed, investigated or subjected to searches by the task forces.
The
requests also are for information on how the task forces are funded to
determine if they are rewarded with government money by labeling high
numbers of cases as related to terrorism.
The government did release one document it gathered on United for Peace
and
Justice that Romero said reinforces his concerns. The organization
describes
itself as a coalition of more than 1,300 anti-war groups.
A memo from Sept. 4, 2003, about Internet sites that were promoting
protests
at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York was addressed to
counterterrorism units in Boston, Los Angeles and New York.
"Why is this being labeled as counterterrorism when it's nothing more
protests at a political convention, a lawful First Amendment activity?"
Romero asked.
ON THE NET
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
American Civil Liberties Union: http://www.aclu.org/spyfiles/
United for Peace and Justice: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
New York Times [New York, NY]
July 18, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18protest.html
Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, July 17 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected
at
least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a
handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups
charge
is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.
The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the
American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush
administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace,
an
environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest
over
the administration's policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a
court
filing this month in a federal court in Washington.
The filing came as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information
Act
brought by the A.C.L.U. and other groups that maintain that the F.B.I.
has
engaged in a pattern of political surveillance against critics of the
Bush
administration. A smaller batch of documents already turned over by the
government sheds light on the interest of F.B.I. counterterrorism
officials
in protests surrounding the Iraq war and last year's Republican National
Convention.
F.B.I. and Justice Department officials declined to say what was in the
A.C.L.U. and Greenpeace files, citing the pending lawsuit. But they
stressed
that as a matter of both policy and practice, they have not sought to
monitor the political activities of any activist groups and that any
intelligence-gathering activities related to political protests are
intended
to prevent disruptive and criminal activity at demonstrations, not to
quell
free speech. They said there might be an innocuous explanation for the
large
volume of files on the A.C.L.U. and Greenpeace, like preserving requests
from or complaints about the groups in agency files.
But officials at the two groups said they were troubled by the
disclosure.
"I'm still somewhat shocked by the size of the file on us," said
Anthony D.
Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. "Why would the F.B.I. collect
almost 1,200 pages on a civil rights organization engaged in lawful
activity? What justification could there be, other than political
surveillance of lawful First Amendment activities?"
Protest groups charge that F.B.I. counterterrorism officials have used
their
expanded powers since the Sept. 11 attacks to blur the line between
legitimate civil disobedience and violent or terrorist activity in what
they
liken to F.B.I. political surveillance of the 1960's. The debate became
particularly heated during protests over the war in Iraq and the run-up
to
the Republican National Convention in New York City last year, with the
disclosures that the F.B.I. had collected extensive information on
plans for
protests.
In all, the A.C.L.U. is seeking F.B.I. records since 2001 or earlier on
some
150 groups that have been critical of the Bush administration's
policies on
the Iraq war and other matters.
The Justice Department is opposing the A.C.L.U.'s request to expedite
the
review of material it is seeking under the Freedom of Information Act,
saying it does not involve a matter of urgent public interest, and
department lawyers say the sheer volume of material, in the thousands of
pages, will take them 8 to 11 months to process for Greenpeace and the
A.C.L.U alone. The A.C.L.U., which went to court in a separate case to
obtain some 60,000 pages of records on the government's detention and
interrogation practices, said the F.B.I. records on the dozens of
protest
groups could total tens of thousands of pages by the time the request is
completed.
The much smaller files that the F.B.I. has already turned over in recent
weeks center on two other groups that were involved in political
protests in
the last few years, and those files point to previously undisclosed
communications by bureau counterterrorism officials regarding activity
at
protests.
Six pages of internal F.B.I. documents on a group called United for
Peace
and Justice, which led wide-scale protests over the Iraq war, discuss
the
group's role in 2003 in preparing protests for the Republican National
Convention.
A memorandum by counterterrorism personnel in the F.B.I.'s Los Angeles
office circulated to other counterterrorism officials in New York,
Boston,
Los Angeles and Washington makes passing reference to possible anarchist
connections of some protesters and the prospect for disruptions but also
quotes at much greater length from more benign statements protesters had
released on the Internet and elsewhere to prepare for the Republican
convention.
One section of the F.B.I. memo, for instance, quotes from a statement
put
out by protesters to rally support for convention protests: "Imagine: A
million people on the street, representing the diversity of New York,
and
the multiplicity of this nation - community organizers, black radicals,
unions, anarchists, church groups, queers, grandmas for peace, AIDS
activists, youth organizers, environmentalists, people of color
contingents,
global justice organizers, those united for peace and justice,
veterans, and
everyone who is maligned by Bush's malicious agenda - on the street - en
masse."
A second file turned over by the F.B.I. on the American Indian Movement
of
Colorado includes seven pages of internal documents and press clippings
related to protests and possible disruptions in the Denver area in
connection with Columbus Day. In that case, a 2002 memorandum
distributed to
F.B.I. counterterrorism officials from agents in Denver said that
"although
the majority of demonstrators at the Columbus Day events will be
peaceful, a
small fraction of individuals intent on causing violence and property
damage
can be expected."
An agent in Denver requested that the F.B.I. open a preliminary
investigation "to allow for identification and investigation of
individuals
planning criminal activity during Columbus Day, October 2002," the
memorandum said. The file does not indicate what came of the request.
The documents are similar in tone to a controversial bulletin
distributed
among F.B.I. counterterrorism officials in October 2003 that analyzed
the
tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators who were
then
planning protests in Washington and San Francisco.
The 2003 memo led to an internal Justice Department inquiry after an
F.B.I.
employee charged that it improperly blurred the line between lawfully
protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department's
Office
of Legal Counsel found that the bulletin raised no legal problems and
that
any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.'s monitoring of the
political
protests was negligible and constitutional.
Still, the debate over the F.B.I.'s practices intensified last year
during
the presidential campaign. The F.B.I. questioned numerous political
protesters, and issued subpoenas for some to appear before grand
juries, in
an effort to head off what officials said they feared could be violent
and
disruptive convention protests. And the Justice Department opened a
criminal
investigation and subpoenaed records regarding Internet messages posted
by
critics of the Bush administration that listed the names of delegates
to the
Republican convention.
Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator for United for Peace and
Justice, a
coalition of more than 1,000 antiwar groups, said she was particularly
concerned that the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism division was discussing the
coalition's operations. "We always assumed the F.B.I. was monitoring
us, but
to see the counterterrorism people looking at us like this is pretty
jarring," she said.
At Greenpeace, which has protested both the Bush administration's
environmental record and its policies in Iraq, John Passacantando,
executive
director of the group's United States operation, said he too was
troubled by
what he had learned.
"If the F.B.I. has taken the time to gather 2,400 pages of information
on an
organization that has a perfect record of peaceful activity for 34
years, it
suggests they're just attempting to stifle the voices of their
critics," Mr.
Passacantando said.
Greenpeace was indicted as an organization by the Justice Department in
a
highly unusual prosecution in 2003 after two of its protesters went
aboard a
cargo ship to try to unfurl a protest banner. A federal judge in Miami
threw
out the case last year.
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Washington Post [Washington, DC]
July 18, 2005
Page A3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700
889.html
FBI Monitored Web Sites for 2004 Protests
Groups Criticize Agency's Surveillance for Terror Unit
By Michael Dobbs, Washington Post Staff Writer
FBI agents monitored Web sites calling for protests against the 2004
political conventions in New York and Boston on behalf of the bureau's
counterterrorism unit, according to FBI documents released under the
Freedom
of Information Act.
The American Civil Liberties Union pointed to the documents as evidence
that
the Bush administration has reacted to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks
on the United States by blurring the distinction between terrorism and
political protest. FBI officials defended the involvement of
counterterrorism agents in providing security for the Republican and
Democratic conventions as an administrative convenience.
The documents were released by the FBI in response to a lawsuit filed
by a
coalition of civil rights, animal rights and environmental groups that
say
they have been subjected to scrutiny by task forces set up to combat
terrorism. The FBI has denied targeting the groups because of their
political views.
"It's increasingly clear that the government is involved in political
surveillance of organizations that are involved in nothing more than
lawful
First Amendment activities," said Anthony Romero, executive director of
the
ACLU. "It raises very serious questions about whether the FBI is back
to its
old tricks."
A Sept. 4, 2003, document addressed to the FBI counterterrorism unit
described plans by a group calling itself RNC Not Welcome to "disrupt"
the
2004 Republican National Convention in New York. It also described
Internet
postings from an umbrella organization known as United for Peace and
Justice, which was coordinating worldwide protests against the
convention.
"It's one thing to monitor protests and protest organizers, but quite
another thing to refer them to your counterterrorism unit," said Leslie
Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice.
Another document, addressed to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which
coordinates anti-terrorist activities by the FBI and local police
forces,
described threats to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in
Boston.
Responding to the lawsuit filed in May in U.S. District Court in
Washington,
the FBI said it had identified 1,173 pages of records relating to the
ACLU
and 2,383 pages relating to Greenpeace. The content of the records,
which
were generated since 2001, is not known.
FBI spokesmen declined to discuss the case on the record on the grounds
that
it is being adjudicated. Speaking on background, an FBI official said
that
many of the records were routine correspondence. He said the FBI
counterterrorism unit received reports on possible threats to the 2004
political conventions because of its role in ensuring security.
UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545