DHS says FBI "possibly funded" Terrorist Group

It was most surprising to come across the following entry at the website for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses for Terrorism (known by the acronym START), which is run by the Department of Homeland Security out of the University of Maryland. According to DHS, START is one of their "centers of excellence," an academic center sponsored by the DHS's Science and Technology Directorate.

The webpage concerns the "Terrorist Organization Profile" for the Secret Army Organization, a right-wing terrorist group in the early 1970s, a group START writes was "possibly funded by the FBI." [You may have to go through a menu and look up SAO by name to get to the appropriate webpage.]

According to START, "The Secret Army Organization (SAO), a right-wing militant group based in San Diego, was active from 1969 to 1972. They targeted individuals and groups who spoke out against the Vietnam War, especially those who organized public demonstrations and distributed anti-war literature."

Indeed, if we could turn the clock back to June 1975, we would read an article in the New York Times, "A.C.L.U. Says F.B.I. Funded 'Army' to Terrorize Antiwar Protesters."

According to the Times, the ACLU compiled a 5,000 page report on the SAO, a group of former Minutemen and other right-wingers and violent home-grown fascists, for the benefit of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "alleging the Federal Bureau of Intelligence recruited a band of right-wing terrorists and supplied them with money and weapons to attack young antiwar demonstrators."

But that's not all, the SAO engaged in bombing and attempted assassination, and guess whose house the weapons turned up in? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's let the DHS's "Center of Excellence" inform us of this important episode in our history, which came, by the way, after the FBI claimed they had stopped their Cointelpro program of disruption of the Left.

Assassination Attempt, FBI Agent Hides the Weapon

From START's SAO webpage:

The report also stated that the SAO planned to kidnap and murder protestors of the 1972 Republican National Convention, which was to be held in San Diego before being relocated to Miami Beach. An assassination attempt of Dr. Peter Bohmer, professor at San Diego State University, and Paula Tharp, reporter for the San Diego Street Journal, brought about the arrests of several SAO members who later acknowledge an FBI connection. During the investigation, the gun used in the assassination attempt was found in the home of FBI agent Steven Christiansen, who was subsequently identified as a SAO contact. In 1973, Godfrey, testifying as an FBI informant, claimed he received up to $20,000 in weapons and a $250 per month income from the FBI to recruit new SAO members and provide information to agents. He also testified to the criminal acts of several SAO operatives, including fellow leader Jerry Lynn Davis. Official statements from the FBI claimed no involvement with the SAO, and no agents were prosecuted.

The story of the SAO is a forgotten piece of contemporary history that is directly relevant to a number of current issues, including the prosecution of the bogus "war on terror," and the FBI's role in it; the debates about government participation in and legalization of assassination of its own citizens; and government surveillance of and attacks upon dissent in this country.

It also could be considered a prime example of the historical amnesia that plagues our times, an amnesia hastened by disinterest by the major media, cheered on by government agencies none too interested in accountability for government overreach or even criminality.

Links to the President

According to the Ann Arbor Sun at the time, the ACLU tagged the SAO as "an interagency apparatus organized 'at the direction of Richard M. Nixon.'"

Reportedly the link to Nixon came via Watergate burglar White House "plumbers" operative Donald Segretti, who affidavits claimed had given funds and military hardware to SAO to disrupt the 1972 GOP convention in San Diego. (The convention was subsequently moved to Miami Beach.)

But it was the FBI who seems to have been operationally in charge.

From the Sun: "SAO operative Jerry Lynn Davis, who once participated in the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion, revealed that [admitted FBI informant Howard Barry] Godfrey had regularly supplied the SAO with money and weapons on behalf of the FBI."

A newspaper office was attacked. A car firebombed. Informants infiltrated, while meetings were monitored. There were plans to poison the punch at antiwar meetings. A theater was bombed. Bulletins were published on "how to make booby traps, how to use ammonium nitrate in high explosives," And then, there was the assassination plot, or rather plots, as the SAO bungled one assassination attempt after another to kill a left-wing professor at San Diego State.

How It Went Down, and the Cover-up

A 1973 article by Richard Popkin at Ramparts described the threats and the attack, when an SAO hitman with a FBI-paid driver tried to kill an American college professor on January 6, 1972, solely because of his political views and activism.

But first, we should realize this was not the first of the assassination plans. An Associated Press article at the time described another failed plot that had yet another FBI informant, Gilbert Romero, and a San Diego undercover cop kidnapping Peter Bohmer and taking him to Tijuana, and setting him up to be killed by Mexican police. The New York Times wrote that the ACLU report included testimony from a FBI informant, John Raspberry, who said in the winter of 1971-72, the FBI approached him to kill Bohmer. For some reason, the attack never took place.

According to Popkin, Godfrey "was assigned to [FBI] agent Steve Christianson, to whom he reported verbally every day, Godfrey was to work on the militant right wing, and was paid two hundred fifty dollars per month by the FBI."

Popkin continued, "Apparently, Godfrey himself was among the more dangerous elements in the SAO, and [FBI] agent Christianson among the more dangerous eminences grises of the operation.... Godfrey admitted that he had driven the car from which another SAO member, George Hoover, had fired into Bohmer's house, wounding Paula Tharp. Subsequently, he had taken the weapon to Christianson, who had hidden it for six months. (This was evidently insufficient grounds for the FBI to take disciplinary action against agent Christianson. He continued as Godfrey's contact until the bombing of the Guild Theatre, at which point he was removed by L. Patrick Gray himself...)"

The START page on SAO commented dryly on the aftermath of the botched assassination. "The SAO became inactive after the assassination case drew much public attention to the group's operations," DHS's Center for Excellence reports. "The testimony of Godfrey against SAO members resulted in prison terms for a significant portion of the San Diego group. Of course, if the SAO was actually FBI-run, the notoriety drawn to the case would have been the impetus to dissolve the group."

No kidding?

Bohmer's Story

I think it's appropriate to give the last words here to Peter Bohmer himself, who survived the attack and while he lost his job at San Diego State, the victim of a witchhunt, went on to join the faculty at Evergreen at Evergreen State College in Washington.

A few words about CoIntelpro before I come back to my story. It is short for counterintelligence program. Cointlepro was/is a program coordinated by the FBI to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” individuals and groups.... Although Cointelpro officially ended in 1971, it has continued although in a somewhat less extreme form without the name up to September 11th 2001. Since then we are going backwards towards more police powers, infiltration and framing of activists....

Although no group I worked in San Diego planned or carried out any violent actions, and many groups were purely educational; 20 people I knew in these groups turned out to be police or FBI agents or informers, many worked for both. They worked hard to cause divisions among individuals and groups. Some but not all were provocateurs.... the FBI visited my employer, SDSU to get me fired, they visited landlords where I lived to get us evicted. They opened my mail, and monitored my checking accounts. We got anonymous phone calls about people being agents who I am sure weren’t....

FBI sponsored groups did firebombings, slashed tires of my cars, continual death threats, put out a wanted poster on me distributed in San Diego in 1971. The Secret Army Organization or (SAO) a group financed from FBI funds and led by an FBI informant, shot into a collective I lived in with the bullet permanently injuring a member of the collective, Paula Tharp in January 1972.

Howard Barry Godfrey, a well-paid FBI informant and head of the Secret Army Organization (SAO) admitted almost a year later in court to driving the car the night of the shooting but claimed another SAO member did the actual shooting. After the shooting into my house, other FBI agents in San Diego covered up the crime and hid the evidence such as the gun used in the shooting. The head of the FBI in LA, working with SD FBI, at this time was Richard W. Held who has been involved in the cases against many activists and political prisoners such as Judi Bari, Leonard Peltier and Geronimo Pratt.

After the shooting, threats and harassment continued. After the Secret Army Organization began threatening liberals as well as radicals and bombed a pornography theater where some police were present, the San Diego police demanded that the FBI reveal their informants in the SAO and the SAO were arrested in the summer of 1972 on numerous charges. Government lawyers hired by the FBI claimed various privileges such as not having to reveal much of the behavior because of security concerns. The full FBI involvement in this attempted murder didn’t come out although one FBI agent was forced to resign. Godfrey, the FBI informant and provocateur in the Secret Army Organization (SAO) didn’t go to prison although two other members of the SAO did.

Amnesia?

As I read this many thoughts come to mind: about the Occupy protests last year, the monitoring of antiwar and peace groups, arrests of activists at the political conventions, the legitimization of state assassination by President Obama, the consolidation of ever-greater power in the hands of the FBI.

What came to mind for you? Will this important episode from history simply drop back into the abyss of forgotten American memories?

I'd like to know what happened to that ACLU report and what action (if any) the Senate Intelligence Committee took on it. I intend to find out.

Cross-posted from Firedoglake/MyFDL

Veto, Protest Nazi-like Bill Which Allows Indefinite Detention of American Citizens at Home, Others Abroad

YouTube user poiqweruadjfkewrijo (why such a long incomprehensible name?) has posted an important video demonstrating that provisions of the new Defense Authorization Bill that would allow the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without evidence or trial were demanded by the Obama administration. (H/T Glenn Greenwald via Twitter) Now a game is being played over whether or not Obama will veto certain aspects of the bill. But the President has not spoken against this provision, and now we know why.

I heartily recommend signing the petition via the link below. But I have little faith it will actually do the trick. We need a great deal more social struggle before things will begin to change.

PETITION: http://wh.gov/D0B We have only a few days to speak up before the President signs NDAA 1031, permitting citizen imprisonment without evidence or trial. The bill passed by Congress absolutely DOES NOT exempt citizens. Section 1031 reads, "A covered person under this section" includes "any person who has committed a belligerent act".

- Confusingly, Obama previously threatened a veto for 1032, but NOT 1031. 1032 is UNRELATED to imprisoning citizens without a trial. He has never suggested using a veto to stop Section 1031 citizen imprisonment. In fact, it was requested by the Obama administration. Watch the video for proof.

- The Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) is dangerously misleading. Don't be fooled: In the text of 1031(e), "Nothing in this section shall be construed...", the only word that matters is "construed" because the Supreme Court are the only ones with the power to construe the law. The Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) permits citizens to be imprisoned without evidence or a trial forever, if the Supreme Court does not EXPLICITLY repeal 1031.

Congress planned to give it to him to sign on Dec. 8, but delayed at the last minute. If we act urgently to tell our friends, family, and colleagues, we can still prevent this. Here is what we can do:

1) Americans must know about this to stop it. Urgently pass this petition as widely as possible: http://whitehouse.gov/D0B Contact the media to clear up confusion about the facts mentioned above.

2) Congress can still block the law before December 13. Write and call your Representative and Senator telling them to stop NDAA Section 1031 and the dangerously misleading Feinstein Amendment 1031(e).
Contact your Representative: http://writerep.house.gov/writerep/
Contact your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

3) Write and call the White House to tell the President you won't sit by and watch NDAA Section 1031 and the misleading Feinstein Amendment 1031(e) become law: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

Excerpt property of C-SPAN.
Fair Use: http://legacy.c-span.org/about/press/release.asp?code=video

What's Past is Prologue: the Case of COINTELPRO (Video)

In "Notes on Civil Liberties" this morning, Kevin highlighted the Bill of Rights Defense Committee's (BORDC) campaign, "Shine a Light on the FBI." I thought I'd add a bit to that discussion.

BORDC, along with 40 other organizations, including Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Torture Accountability, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Defending Dissent Foundation and the National Lawyers Guild, among others, wrote a letter [PDF] on July 12 to members of Congress, "request[ing] that you vote against the White House proposal to extend the term of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved legislation to implement the proposal, but did so without adequate process and without meaningfully addressing any of the numerous outstanding oversight issues and constitutional abuses for which the Bureau continues to evade accountability."

As part of their campaign, BORDC has produced a great short video, "The unPATRIOTic Act & COINTELPRO 2.0," in which a number of former FBI and U.S. military figures, along with human rights activists, explain how the Patriot Act and government surveillance of and attacks on current activists, including Quakers and antiwar groups, are redolent of the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO program of the 1950s-1970s. The video is definitely worth viewing.



On the earlier COINTELPRO program, see this 1976 report by the U.S. Senate's Church committee, or this webpage dedicated to the subject at Political Research Associates, which includes links to many of the released COINTELPRO documents.

Despite the fact the FBI used agents provocateurs, forged documents, and various nefarious activities, including trying to drive Martin Luther King, Jr. to suicide, no U.S. officials were ever prosecuted for these activities.

BORDC reminds us that those interested can sign on to their letter to Congress.

Originally posted at The Dissenter/FDL

Congress Says Government Can Seize Your Personal & Business Records, and Then Gag Your Ability to Talk About It

The People's Blog for the Constitution (blog of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee) recently discussed the implications of the new reauthorization of the post-9/11 Patriot Act. This legislation has amounted to a direct assault on U.S. civil liberties, and Congress has been totally and abjectly complicit in reauthorizing these laws over and over again, since first proposed by the Bush Administration in 2002.

Four more years of the PATRIOT Act will worsen government secrecy

On May 26, 2011, Congress voted to reauthorize three provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT that were set to expire. The most contentious of these provisions is Section 215, which allows the government to more easily gain access to various personal records without clear evidence that the individual in question poses a threat to national security. This provision also places a gag order on anyone whose records have been seized so they can’t talk about what happened.

If the thought of the government accessing your business or medical records, telephone calls, books, diaries, and even your genetic information (go to page 87) isn’t scary enough, the most frightening aspect of this provision is that we don’t know how the government actually interprets and applies it. In part, this is because the Justice Department has refused to reveal the government’s interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

Prior to Congress’s vote on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall proposed an amendment that would require the US Attorney General to publicly reveal the government’s official interpretation of the PATRIOT ACT. Wyden claims,

“[T]he government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are… and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.”

Unfortunately, the proposed amendment failed and the law was reauthorized until 2015.
The government’s refusal to explain, much less meaningfully reform, this provision of the PATRIOT Act is hardly the first time that this piece of legislation has been used to infringe on the rights of people in the United States. The increasing use of national security letters (NSLs) to demand personal records without court approval has resulted in an estimated 6,400 intelligence violations. Some of these violations took the form of exigent letters, which do not exist anywhere in the law, but according to the Inspector General’s investigation, “contained inaccurate statements, circumvented the requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act NSL statute, and violated Attorney General Guidelines and internal FBI policy.”

Despite widespread and well-documented abuses, Congress reauthorized the PATRIOT Act for another four years without any protections for civil liberties. Congress has failed to check and balance the Executive Branch on civil liberties issues, allowing executive secrecy to become entrenched—and this failure has implications far beyond surveillance.  With the Obama administration prosecuting more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined (including some who risked prosecution by exposing important facts about surveillance), Congress’s abandonment of its oversight responsibilities on the PATRIOT Act bodes poorly for the future.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already stated that it will ask the courts to disclose information that Congress wouldn’t. On May 31, the ACLU filed a  Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding that the government reveal its interpretation of Section 215. Keep checking this blog and the ACLU for updates on that case and other news about the PATRIOT Act and civil liberties.

Legal Case to Decide Secret Police Use of GPS Tracking Devices

The National Association of Criminal Defense (NACDL) has posted the following important press release:

Civil Liberties Groups, Defenders and Law Professors Seek to Require Warrant for Police GPS Surveillance

Washington, DC (June 9, 2011) – A diverse group of civil liberties organizations, defenders and law professors this week weighed in on the question of whether law enforcement may unilaterally conduct unregulated surveillance of personal vehicles by secretly attaching global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitters. The case, State v. Johnson, is currently before the Supreme Court of Ohio and has profound implications for the privacy rights of individuals and organizations. The groups argue that this kind of tracking, unlimited by space or time, requires a court to first issue a warrant based upon a showing of probable cause.

As the law currently stands in Ohio, low-cost GPS transmitters can be secretly attached to any Ohioan’s vehicle to pinpoint the vehicle’s location on public or private property, 24/7, within a few feet or yards, to virtually any computer with an internet connection. The devices are used for tracking a vehicle or person in real-time, and the data also can be permanently stored and subjected to pattern analysis, revealing not just a person’s whereabouts, but his habits, associations, who his friends are, where he shops, banks and goes to church, and a host of other information. The groups and individuals submitting this brief argue that court supervision should be required to protect First and Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the issue, several state courts have held under their own state constitutions that the use of the GPS device without any judicial oversight is unconstitutional, including New York, Washington, Oregon, Delaware, and Massachusetts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently found such a requirement under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The organizations and individuals that joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) on this amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief include the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Electronic Frontier Foundation, First Amendment Lawyers Association, Center for Democracy and Technology, American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, Office of the Ohio Public Defender, and seven Ohio Professors of Law.

The brief was written by Susan J. Walsh, Of Counsel at Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard, P.C. in New York City and NACDL National Security Coordinator Michael W. Price.

“In an age where warrants can be secured in minimal time via electronic and other means, to not require a warrant based on probable cause before the government begins secret, around-the-clock electronic surveillance of persons who have not been charged or convicted of any crime is an open invitation to abuse. It is nothing less than an Orwellian nightmare to permit the collection of this kind of personal data without any judicial oversight whatsoever,” explains lead author Susan J. Walsh.

According to Ohio Attorney and Counsel for Amici Curiae on this brief, Ravert J. Clark, “This is just as much a First Amendment free association issue as it is a Fourth Amendment search and seizure issue for the people of Ohio. The secret use of these GPS devices by law enforcement permits the state to continually track and record a person’s whereabouts, without any limitation or prior approval by a court. This would include information about where people eat, sleep, worship, and seek medical care, as well as with whom they associate and the clubs they attend. The status quo should be a cause for significant concern for every Ohioan.”

The brief is available on NACDL’s website at: http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/newsissues/amicus_attachments/$FILE/OhiovJohnson_Amicus.pdf

The Constitution Project: Stop Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border

The Constitution Project, a group of experts and practitioners from across the political spectrum, who wishes to "promote and safeguard America's founding charter," have issued a press release (PDF) calling for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop unreasonable searches of laptops and cell phones carried by citizens and visitors crossing the U.S. border, or arriving internationally at airports.

Such searches are not only intrusive, they are meant to freeze dissent in this country. Recent searches and confiscation of electronic media have happened to people such as Bradley Manning supporter David House, who had a thumb drive, laptop, and digital camera seized when he landed at Chicago's O'Hare Airport from Mexico last November. He's suing DHS, with help from ACLU of Massachusetts, who apparently have targeted him because of his work with the Bradley Manning Support Network. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking Defense Department information, supposedly to Wikileaks, and is currently being held in military custody at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, pending trial.

Another person who had his laptop confiscated back in February 2008, one of thousands of such Americans suffering such warrantless seizure, was freelance journalist Bill Hogan. A U.S. News and World Report article on Hogan's case noted that "an April [2008] ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection, does have full authority to search any electronic devices without suspicion in the same way that it can inspect briefcases."

It's not just journalists and activists who are having their electronic devices searched or seized, a Washington Post story from 2008 detailed such seizures going back to at least 2006, and gave as examples a therapist and a marketing executive. One person had their daughter's personal calls erased from her phone. Another person, a tech engineer, was forced to give up his password and stood helplessly by as DHS officials copied down his website viewing history.

"It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage," said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase."

Other lawsuits have been filed against the government policy, and Electronic Frontier Foundation has also been active in supporting these legal actions. Meanwhile, according to Computerworld, the Ninth Circuit ruled again just last April that "Laptop computers and other digital devices carried into the U.S. may be seized from travelers without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection."

From the TCP press release:

U.S. Urged to End Border Searches of Electronic Devices Without Reasonable Suspicion

WASHINGTON -Today, The Constitution Project (TCP) called upon the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discontinue its policy of searching electronic devices-including laptops and smart phones - at the border without reasonable suspicion. According to a just-released TCP report, between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, over 6,500 people - almost half of whom were U.S. citizens-were subjected to searches of their electronic devices upon crossing the international border.

The report was developed by 19 members of TCP's bipartisan Liberty & Security Committee, including William S. Sessions, a former federal judge and Director of the FBI; Asa Hutchinson, former head of border security for DHS during the George W. Bush administration and former Member of Congress (R-AR); and Mary McCarthy, a former CIA official.

According to TCP Senior Policy Counsel Sharon Bradford Franklin, "Searches of our laptops and smart phones - without reasonable suspicion - can easily result in a breach of our privacy rights, given the amount of personal information we carry on those devices. Courts have historically recognized a limited exception to the Fourth Amendment permitting routine searches at the border, but the scope of those searches has vastly expanded given the storage capacity of electronic devices today. It's a classic example of technology outpacing our legal system, and the government must reform its policy to restore Fourth Amendment protections."

The report cited such search practices as accessing email accounts, examining photographs and looking through personal calendars. In some cases, electronic devices were confiscated for as long as a year. The report recommends that in the case of U.S. persons, officials should be required to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before continuing a search or retaining copies of electronic data beyond 24 hours.

ACLU & Large Coalition Send Letter to Rep. King re Offensive Muslim "Radicalization" Hearing

The following is a press release from the ACLU regarding the deeply racist and divisive House of Representative Homeland Security Committee hearings scheduled for this coming Thursday. Purportedly called by Rep. Peter King to examine supposed Muslim "extremism," the hearings are a thinly veiled call for discrimination and political demagogy, whipping up fear of a domestic menace, which doesn't really exist. It's racist and offensive, but also dangerous, and a sign of the insanity of our times.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration feeds this kind of fear-mongering with its own recent policies, via Executive Order, calling for indefinite detention of "terrorists" at Guantanamo. Rep. King was thrilled by this latest travesty by the Obama administration, and certainly, it fits right in with his campaign of fear.

For more on this issue, see the release by the Leadership Conference of their report, "Restoring a National Consensus: The Need to End Racial Profiling in America." The website Faith in Public Life also has a interesting round-up of commentary by religious leaders speaking out against the King hearings.

On the issue of Obama's lifting of the stay on military commissions trials, and the setting up of an apparatus for indefinite detention of uncharged and/or unconvicted "terrorists" at Guantanamo, see the analysis by Center for Constitutional Rights, and article out today by Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald.

The ACLU press release and letter to Rep. King:

ACLU And Broad Coalition Tell Rep. King Of Concerns About Muslim “Radicalization” Hearing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8, 2011

CONTACT:(202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union, along with several other human rights and civil liberties organizations, sent a letter today to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) expressing deep concern about his committee’s upcoming hearing on the so-called “radicalization of the American Muslim community.” The hearing is scheduled for Thursday, March 10.

The letter, sent by over 40 groups, urges Rep. King and his committee not to conflate First Amendment-protected practices with involvement in terrorism. The letter also criticizes the hearing’s false premise that the Muslim community and its leaders are uncooperative with law enforcement.

The letter states, “Treating an entire community as suspect because of the bad acts or intolerant statements of a few is imprudent and unfair, and in the past has only led to greater misunderstanding, injustice and discrimination. Erroneous theories of eugenics supported racist immigration policies and Jim Crow anti-miscegenation laws for decades. Misguided ‘red’ scares and racism drove abominable policies like blacklists, McCarthyism and Japanese internment, betrayed American values and did not improve security. To avoid the same mistakes, the Committee should rely on facts and scientifically rigorous analysis, not biased opinions or unsupported theories positing a discernable ‘radicalization’ process that are belied by available evidence.”

According to the letter, “A fact-based approach enhanced with scientifically rigorous analysis will likely be more successful at providing a clear picture of the threats we face and the appropriate methods we need to employ to address them without violating the constitutional rights of innocent persons. Fear and misunderstanding should not drive our government policies.”

The full text of the letter can be found below:

March 8, 2011
Representative Peter King
U.S.House Committee on Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman King:

As organizations dedicated to protecting rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, we write to express our concern that your Committee’s planned hearings on the “radicalization of the American Muslim community” risk chilling fundamental First Amendment freedoms of religion, speech, and association.  These freedoms occupy a special place in our history and in the Constitution.  They define who we are as a country, and may not be set aside.

Our concerns are driven by your public statements justifying the basis for, and goals of, the Committee’s proposed hearings, which raise significant and troubling issues.[i]  Holding hearings based on a deeply flawed theory of “radicalization” that falsely conflates religious practices with preparation for terrorism and focuses exclusively on Muslim-Americans will burden the free exercise of religion, give the appearance of official endorsement of one set of religious beliefs over another and chill free association and free speech.  We are also deeply troubled by your plan to use the hearing to air the unsubstantiated allegation that Muslim-American leaders are uncooperative with U.S. counterterrorism efforts, both because the allegation is demonstrably incorrect and because it will only sow discord when national unity is most needed.

At the outset, and as organizations devoted to the protection of free speech, we want to emphasize that it is entirely appropriate for a member of Congress to express his or her views regarding issues of national interest, as you have done, including when such views are controversial.  While we, in turn, challenge the factual basis supporting some of your arguments, your views and your speech are protected by the First Amendment.[ii]  Indeed, as free speech organizations, we have and would defend the First Amendment rights of all individuals to express any, even hateful, views on matters of public debate, including whether particular religious or political beliefs are used to justify violence.

But when conducting official inquiries under the auspices of a standing committee of Congress, members have a higher duty to ensure that constitutional rights are not diminished under the weight of government scrutiny.  While Congress has broad and necessary powers of oversight and inquiry, they are not unlimited.  As the Supreme Court held in 1957 in one of the cases arising out of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, congressional inquiries, like legislation, may not entrench on First Amendment freedoms of religion, speech and association.[iii]

In order to accomplish its goals in accordance with the Constitution, therefore, the Committee, like law enforcement, must distinguish between First Amendment-protected ideological beliefs – whether radical or not – and criminal terrorist activity or plots.  Only the latter may properly be the subject of official inquiry.  Congress simply has no business examining Americans’ religious or political beliefs in official hearings – even if these beliefs are considered “radical” by some.  Congress must also avoid giving the appearance of an official endorsement of one set of religious beliefs over another.  It would be inappropriate and unwise for Congress to conduct an inquiry into the nature of Islam, the different interpretations of the faith among Muslims, whether there exists an “ideology” of “political Islam,” or whether some Muslims are more loyal Americans than others, just as it would be inappropriate for Congress to examine different interpretations of Christianity or debate whether Baptists or Catholics are more trustworthy.

Treating an entire community as suspect because of the bad acts or intolerant statements of a few is imprudent and unfair, and in the past has only led to greater misunderstanding, injustice and discrimination.  Erroneous theories of eugenics supported racist immigration policies and Jim Crow anti-miscegenation laws for decades.  Misguided “red” scares and racism drove abominable policies like blacklists, McCarthyism and Japanese internment, betrayed American values and did not improve security.  To avoid the same mistakes, the Committee should rely on facts and scientifically rigorous analysis, not biased opinions or unsupported theories positing a discernable “radicalization” process that are belied by available evidence.[iv]  “Radicalization” is simply a euphemism for religious and ideological profiling, which can only lead to further discrimination.

Targeting a minority religious community for official scrutiny also poses a great risk of promoting divisiveness, rather than national unity, which can only impair the government’s national security efforts on behalf of us all.  Avoiding religious divisiveness was a main objective of the Founders in drafting both the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment.[v]  Official congressional inquiry only adds to divisiveness by putting enormous pressure on private groups and individuals who are singled out for scrutiny.  Many American Muslim community and faith groups have objected that the Committee’s hearings will present a false or misleading picture both of Islam and of the various and diverse Muslim communities in our country.[vi]  Negative repercussions may be especially likely in the case of the American Muslim community, which has already been the target of both hate speech and actual violence.  Recent media reports about the Committee’s proposed hearings demonstrate that they already have contributed to an atmosphere of increased religious animosity.[vii]

Your Committee can carry out its important function in a wide variety of ways without trampling on the constitutional rights of American Muslims.  The Committee may quite properly examine the continuing serious threat of domestic terrorism, and pursue broad areas of inquiry related to efforts by al Qaeda and others to commit acts of violence in the United States.  Terrorist methodologies, including efforts to recruit individuals to carry out terrorist acts, are properly the subject of government scrutiny.  Indeed, Congress has addressed these issues many times over the past several years, and many of the undersigned groups have long advocated that the proper focus of congressional hearings is on better understanding the nature and scope of the threat, vigorously exercising Congress’s authorities to oversee the government’s response, holding our military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies accountable, and crafting sensible legislation to enhance security while protecting the rights of innocent persons.  We will continue to work with Congress to ensure our government’s counterterrorism efforts are productive, effective, and legal.  The Committee’s hearing this month on “Threats to the Homeland” with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter is an example of appropriate congressional inquiry, as are the hearings focusing on the domestic threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and the threat to air commerce.

Secondly, we are deeply concerned that a focus of your Committee’s hearing is based on the mischaracterization of leaders in the American Muslim community as uncooperative with U.S. counterterrorism efforts.  This allegation is demonstrably false.  Numerous law enforcement officials have gone on the record to dispute this allegation,[viii]academic studies have catalogued the assistance Muslims have provided to anti-terrorism efforts,[ix]and the undersigned organizations work closely with many Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups that are deeply involved in efforts to improve security policies.  Indeed, your Committee has heard testimony from several law enforcement witnesses regarding their engagement with Muslim-American communities on a host of issues.[x]
Our concern is heightened by your statements implying that American Muslims’ “cooperation” in national security efforts must be measured by their willingness to provide information voluntarily to counterterrorism enforcement agencies.  Although warning law enforcement officials of threats is indeed a shared civic and social responsibility, it would be illegal, unfair and impractical for Congress or law enforcement officials to require any religious or belief community to prove its loyalty to this country by “informing” on its members.  To the contrary, American Muslims, like the rest of this country’s citizens, have the right to protest illegal, over-zealous or abusive government security measures and to vigorously exercise, and encourage others to exercise rights guaranteed in the Constitution.  There are also legitimate concerns about whether individuals who volunteer information to law enforcement will find themselves threatened with legal jeopardy.  Advising individuals to speak to lawyers before talking to law enforcement or even to refrain from talking to law enforcement is both prudent and completely legal speech protected by the Bill of Rights.  We expect that many corporations, businesses and even congressional offices would advise their employees to consult a lawyer before speaking with law enforcement as well.

Recognizing and respecting the line between protected beliefs and illegal activity does not undermine our security, but rather strengthens it.  Basing security policy on factually flawed “radicalization” theories will only waste precious security resources.  Law enforcement has been successful in preventing terrorist plots many times over the past few years by focusing on facts and evidence.  Inquiring into how many Muslims hold “radical” beliefs, however those are defined, will not aid those efforts.  To the contrary, it will undermine the crucial bonds between communities and the government and law enforcement.  Most dangerously, it is likely to undermine our efforts to demonstrate to Muslims at home and abroad that the United States seeks to live up to its ideals in its treatment of all Americans, including Muslims, and is not engaged in a “war against Islam.”  

As civil liberties and free speech organizations, we have fought for many years against government proposals to investigate the religious or political beliefs of any group of Americans.  We subscribe to the views of the Attorney General that “law enforcement has an obligation to ensure that members of every religious community enjoy the ability to worship and to practice their faith in peace, free from intimidation, violence or suspicion. That is the right of all Americans. And it must be a reality for every citizen.  In this nation, our many faiths, origins, and appearances must bind us together, not break us apart.”  We hope that you will agree that this is also the obligation of the Congress. 

We respectfully urge that your Committee treat unsubstantiated theories about “radicalization” with skepticism and focus its efforts on actual terrorist acts and those who commit them rather than on the adoption of beliefs or the expression of dissent.  A fact-based approach enhanced with scientifically rigorous analysis will likely be more successful at providing a clear picture of the threats we face and the appropriate methods we need to employ to address them without violating the constitutional rights of innocent persons. Fear and misunderstanding should not drive our government policies.

We would be happy to supply any additional information and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further. Thank you for considering our views.

Sincerely,

American Civil Liberties Union
American Association of University Professors
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
American Friends Service Committee
American Library Association
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Arab American Institute
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Casa Esperanza
Center for Media and Democracy
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Defending Dissent Foundation
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
DRUM- Desis Rising Up & Moving
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Friends of the Earth
Greater NYC for Change
Humanitarian Law Project
Kinder USA
Liberty Coalition
Muslim Advocates
Muslim Bar Association of New York
Muslim Bar Association of Southern California
Muslim Public Affairs Council
National Coalition Against Censorship
New Security Action
NYC Coalition to Stop Islamophobia
Pakistan American Public Affairs Committee
Peace Action
People For the American Way
Pipe Organs/Golden Ponds Farm
Queens Federation of Churches
Rutherford Institute
Secular Coalition for America
Sikh Council on Religion and Education
South Asian Americans Leading Together
South Asian Network
The Sikh Coalition
UNITED SIKHS
www.JusticeThroughMusic.org
www.StopDomesticTerror.com

Cc:  Ranking Member Bennie Thompson
        Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security
        Speaker John Boehner
        Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

[i]Peter King, “What’s Radicalizing Muslim Americans?,” Newsday (Dec. 17, 2010) available at http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/ny03_king/radicalizingmuslimamericans.html(hereinafter “Newsday op-ed”); Frank Gaffney Interview with Peter King, Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney (Jan. 6, 2011) available at http://www.securefreedomradio.org/2011/01/06/january-6-2011-faith-mcdonnell-rep-pete-king-sara-carter/.
[ii]We are disturbed, for example, by your unsubstantiated and divisive assertion that 85 percent of American mosques are run by extremists, especially given that experts on the subject have found that American Muslims’ attendance at mosques helps to prevent violent extremism.  See David Schanzer, Charles Kurzman, and Ebrahim Mooza, Anti-terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans, National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, p. 1, (Jan. 6, 2010) available at http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-34--4912-view-1255.
[iii]Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 188 (1957). 
[iv]Recent “radicalization” theories are not supported by empirical evidence.  For example, the 2007 New York Police Department (“NYPD’) report, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, drew quick condemnation from the civil liberties and Muslim communities for its serious factual and methodological flaws.  New York City Muslim and Arab community leaders formed a coalition in response to the NYPD report and issued a detailed analysis criticizing NYPD for wrongfully “positing a direct causal relation between Islam and terrorism such that expressions of faith are equated with signs of danger,” potentially putting millions of Muslims at risk.  Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, CountertERRORism Policy: MACLC’s Critique of the NYPD’s Report on Homegrown Terrorism (2008) available at http://maclcnypdcritique.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/counterterrorism-policy-final-paper3.pdf.  See also  Aziz Huq, Concerns with Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, N.Y. Police Dep’t, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, New York University School of Law, Brennan Center for Justice (Aug. 30, 2007) available at http://brennan.3cdn.net/436ea44aae969ab3c5_sbm6vtxgi.pdf; American Civil Liberties Union et al., Coalition Memo to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Regarding “Homegrown Terrorism”(May 7, 2008) available at http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/35209leg20080507.html.  NYPD added a “clarification” in 2009.  See http://maclc1.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/maclc-90809-letter-response-to-nypd-statement-of-clarification/.
[v]Annals of Congress (Sat., Aug. 15, 1789) pp. 730–31; McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 876 (2005) (“The Framers and the citizens of their time intended not only to protect the integrity of individual conscience in religious matters, but to guard against the civic divisiveness that follows when the government weighs in on one side of religious debate; nothing does a better job of roiling society, a point that needed no explanation to the descendants of English Puritans and Cavaliers (or Massachusetts Puritans and Baptists)”); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 622 (1971) (“political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect”).
[vi]“51 Organizations Tell Congress that Hearings Targeting American Muslims are Divisive,” Muslim Advocates (Feb. 1, 2011) available at http://www.muslimadvocates.org/latest/51_organizations_tell_congress.html
[vii]Arun Venugopal, King’s Hearings on Radical Islam Draw Rival Protest Groups, WNYC Newsblog (Feb. 23, 2011) available at  http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/feb/22/rival-protests-rep-kings-office-over-islam-hearings/
[viii]See Counterterrorism Experts Reject Peter King’s Targeting of Muslims, National Security Network (Jan. 28, 2011) available at http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1847; “Baca: No Evidence Muslims Not Cooperating with Police,” CBS Los Angeles (Feb. 11, 2011) available at http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/02/07/baca-no-evidence-us-muslims-not-cooperating-with-police/
[ix]See Charles Kurzman, “Muslim-American Terrorism Since 9/11: An Accounting,” Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security (Feb. 2, 2011) available at http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/about/documents/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_Since_911_An_Accounting.pdf
[x]See, e.g., Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, “Working with Communities  to Disrupt Terror Plots” (Mar. 17, 2010); Hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, “Radicalization, Information Sharing and Community Outreach: Protecting the Homeland from Homegrown Terror” (Apr. 5, 2007).

Obama Seizes Power from the Courts

That may sound sensationalistic to some, but what else could a proposal for the Executive Branch to set up its own determinations regarding the indefinite detention of prisoners mean? No habeas appeal will release a prisoner, if the President says so. No charges brought. Hope of liberty will rest in a kangaroo "parole board" assembled by the President. If this is not the epitome of tyranny, I don't know what is.

See some great coverage here:

White House Drafts Executive Order For Indefinite Detention by Dafna Linzer

Guantánamo Prisoners Sacrificed In Political Horse-Trading Over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
by Andy Worthington

Obama’s EO on Indefinite Detention: Wanting Bud McKeon’s Cake and Eating It Too
by Marcy Wheeler

The Obama Administration's Indefinite Detention Policy: The Return Of The President As King? by Big Tent Democrat

From the latter, who was willing to consider, grant you, some kind of system of indefinite detention, if it had checks and balances:

The key to my analysis was the President's statement that:

If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight[.]

The reported proposed executive order on indefinite detention violates this condition. Instead, it reverts to the Bush system that President Obama criticized by saying "we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone." Now the Obama Administration appears to be proposing an indeifinte detention system that indeed is based "simply on what [he] or the executive branch decide alone."

Such a system is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution. It would be a travesty, and likely, a war crime.

Surveillance State Über Alles

Glenn Greenwald spins a marvelous and important article off the latest installment of the Washington Post's "Top Secret America" series. In "Monitoring America," Dana Priest and William M. Arken describe "an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it."

The Post also supplies a nice database for your state where you can search for "a detailed profile of counterterrorism efforts in your community."

Greenwald describes how "the Post reporters document how surveillance and enforcement methods pioneered in America's foreign wars and occupations are being rapidly imported into domestic surveillance (wireless fingerprint scanners, military-grade infrared cameras, biometric face scanners, drones on the border)."

What we are observing and the Post article documents, is the process whereby the counterterror state sucks up all dissent into its greedy maw, having developed a full-scale sub-world that threatens to rise up and swallow the entire country in its tyrannical grasp. The example du jour: the U.S. campaign against Wikileaks.

It's crystal clear that the Justice Department is engaged in an all-out crusade to figure out how to shut down WikiLeaks and imprison Julian Assange.  It is subjecting Bradley Manning to unbelievably inhumane conditions in order to manipulate him into providing needed testimony to prosecute Assange.  Recall that in 2008 -- long before anyone even knew what WikiLeaks was -- the Pentagon secretly plotted on how to destroy the organization.  On Meet the Press yesterday, Joe Biden was asked whether he agreed more with Mitch McConnell's statement that Assange is a "high-tech terrorist" than with those comparing WikiLeaks to Daniel Ellsberg, and the Vice President replied:  "I would argue that it's closer to being a high tech terrorist. . . ."  "A high-tech terrorist."  And consider this pernicious little essay from Eric Fiterman -- a former FBI special agent and founder of Methodvue, "a consultancy that provides cybersecurity and computer forensics services to the federal government and private businesses" -- that clearly reflects the Government's view of WikiLeaks:

In the WikiLeaks case, a fringe group led primarily by foreign nationals operating abroad is illegally obtaining, reviewing and disseminating American intelligence information with the stated intent of hurting the United States (WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself made this declaration). That not only meets the definition of aggressive, hostile and war-like activity, but squarely targets America's diplomatic positions and intelligence interests while inflicting collateral damage against our financial institutions and service providers who cut-off their relationship with WikiLeaks. This, folks, is war.

That's the mindset of the U.S. Government:  everything it does of any significance can and should be shielded from public view; anyone who shines light on what it does is an Enemy who must be destroyed; but nothing you do should be beyond its monitoring and storing eyes.  And what's most remarkable about this -- though, given the full-scale bipartisan consensus over it, not surprising -- is how eagerly submissive much of the citizenry is to this imbalance.  Many Americans plead with their Government in unison:  we demand that you know everything about us but that you keep us ignorant about what you do and punish those who reveal it to us.  Often, this kind of oppressive Surveillance State has to be forcibly imposed on a resistant citizenry, but much of the frightened American citizenry -- led by most transparency-hating media figures -- has been trained with an endless stream of fear-mongering to demand that they be subjected to more and more of it.

This is an awful time in American history, possibly even more dire than in the dark first years of the Bush, Jr. administration. Back then, after an initial post-9/11 stumble, progressives managed to speak out against the worst of what the government was doing, and the beginnings of an opposition were formed. Now, under a Democratic administration, it is being dissembled. Not actually (not yet) because of government repression (at least not directly), but out of political obeisance to the Democratic Party, and maintenance of the status quo.

How long will the virtuous stomach collaborating with those who promote or tolerate war, torture, financial robbery of the commons, and racist attacks on defenseless minorities and immigrants?

The U.S. desperately needs a new political party to challenge the entrenched interests and the power elite. Only a party based on the social power of the mass of working people could stand a chance with that. But that would be socialism, real socialism in action. And that kind of politics is taboo in America. But it's likely not to remain that way. Because at a certain point, it will be the only chance the people will have.

Protect Press Freedom! List of Wikileaks Mirror Sites

Lisa Derrick at FDL has it up (and thanks Vern and a host of anonymous technicians and bloggers). We're going to need this, as the ruling elite tempest against Wikileaks and public spokesperson Julian Assange is going into overdrive. Their aim reaches far beyond Assange and Wikileaks, to control over information.

Hey kids, I bet it’d be fun to print out a few cables as holiday cards, wrapping paper and decoupage! Make silkscreens for tee shirts and posters! Or use them for logomancy and Burroughs-esque cut up.  Just get ‘em while you can at any of the these of sites:

http://wikileaksmirrorlist.blogspot.com/:

wikileaks.ch – Official Wikileaks Page [173.227.66.20, 208.65.130.26 and others]

wikileaks.fi – Mirror Finland [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.nl – Mirror Netherlands [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.de – Mirror Germany [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.eu – Mirror Europe [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.pl – Mirror Poland [88.80.13.160]

wikileaks.at – Mirror Austria [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.lu – Mirror Luxembourg [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.se – Mirror Sweden [88.80.6.179]

wikileaks.no – Mirror Norway [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.is – Mirror Iceland [46.59.1.2]

nyud.net – Mirror United States [129.170.214.192]

wikileaks.ca – Mirror Canada [46.59.1.2]

wikileaks.info – Mirror of previous leaks [62.2.16.94]

For a list of all 729 mirror sites for Wikileaks now up around the world, see this page from http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html. You might want to bookmark that page, but if it’s down, you’ll need another reference to find a proper mirror site, and you can try the ones above, or going to wikileaksmirrorsite.

VIDEO: TSA Out of Control - "The everyday people are now the terrorists... This is bullshit"

If you can't see the video above, click here.

There's a definite feeling of mass protest filling the air around the new full-body scanners and "enhanced" pat-downs (i.e., molestations) at U.S. airports. Many feel it is the means to soften up the population for mass police state procedures. They should be rescinded by the government, who is using "terrorism" hysteria to further hoodwink and control the populace.

Pilots unions are starting to boycott the scanners, while Reddit users have formed a grass-roots site, Fly with Dignity, which is providing information on which airports have the back-scatter scanners, and is attempting to form actions to oppose this new policy.

Do Americans, who have shown a lackluster attitude, to say the least, about confronting their government on human rights abuses, such as torture, have the balls to stand up against being multiply X-rayed and having their children groped by government agents at airports? I don't know, but I hope so. Telling people they have to be sexually molested for their safety is the height of Orwellian madness.

"Government harassing and intimidating Bradley Manning supporters"

You must catch this Glenn Greenwald article, as the possibility of the U.S. devolving into a totally fascistic state becomes actualized before our eyes. This is the kind of thing that must not stand. Political change is not only becoming an impossibility, making it so is the primary policy of the Barack Obama administration. Sure, the GOP may be worse, but that thin line of difference is becoming as transparent as fine gossamer. For all practical reasons, there's been no difference, and hasn't for a long time.

Here's a piece from the article, which I think readers should click through to and read the whole thing.

In July of this year, U.S. citizen Jacob Appelbaum, a researcher and spokesman for WikiLeaks, was detained for several hours at the Newark airport after returning from a trip to Holland, and had his laptop, cellphones and other electronic products seized -- all without a search warrant, without being charged with a crime, and without even being under investigation, at least to his knowledge.  He was interrogated at length about WikiLeaks, and was told by the detaining agents that he could expect to be subjected to the same treatment every time he left the country and attempted to return to the U.S. Days later, two FBI agents approached him at a computer conference he was attending in New York and asked to speak with him again.  To date, he has never been charged with any crime or even told he's under investigation for anything; this was clearly a thuggish attempt by federal officials to intimidate any American citizen involved with or supporting WikiLeaks.

That campaign of intimidation is now clearly spreading to supporters of Bradley Manning.  Last Wednesday, November 3, David House, a 23-year-old researcher who works at MIT, was returning to the U.S. from a short vacation with his girlfriend in Mexico, and was subjected to similar and even worse treatment.  House's crime:  he did work in helping set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise money for Manning's legal defense fund, and he has now visited Manning three times in Quantico, Virginia, where the accused WikiLeaks leaker is currently being detained (all those visits are fully monitored by government agents).  Like Appelbaum, House has never been accused of any crime, never been advised that he's under investigation, and was never told by any federal agents that he's suspected of any wrongdoing at all.

Last Wednesday, House arrived at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and his flight was met in the concourse by customs agents, who examined the passports of all deplaning passengers until they saw House's, at which point they stopped.  He was then directed to Customs, where his and his girlfriend's bags were extensively searched.  After the search was complete, two men identifying themselves as Homeland Security officials told House and his girlfriend they were being detained for questioning and would miss their connecting flight.  House was told that he was required to relinquish all of his electronic products, and thus gave them his laptop, cellphone, digital camera and UBS flash drive.  The document he received itemizing his seized property is here.  He was also told to give the agents all of his passwords and encryption keys, which he refused to do.

House was then taken to a detention room by two armed agents and on his way there, he passed by a room in which several individuals were plugging various instruments into his laptop and cellphone.  The two agents, Marcial Santiago and Darin Louck, proceeded to question him for 90 minutes about why he was visiting Manning in prison, what work he did to support the Manning campaign, who else was involved in the Manning support group, and what his views were on WikiLeaks.  He was told that he would not receive his laptop or camera back, and the agents kept it.  To date, he has not received them back and very well may never.... He subsequently learned from Agent Santiago that although Agent Louck identified himself as a Homeland Security agent, he is, in fact, with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

A commenter at Salon inquires, wisely: "Why were they so quick on these guys tails, when the Mumbai guy gets off scott free, hired by the government and sent to Pakistan over his ex-wives attempts to alert 'authorities' of the craziness of their husband?"

Why, indeed?

Statement by Committee to Stop FBI Repression

The video presents a statement on behalf of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, a coalition group formed in response to a series of raids by the FBI against anti-war and international solidarity activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. According to a story by Kevin Gosztola at The Seminal/Firedoglake, Chicago activists Stephanie Weiner (see video above), Joe Iosbaker "and three other activists had been called to testify before a grand jury on October 5th.... Iosbaker reported, 'Nine others who have dates scheduled for later this month have also submitted letters invoking their right not to testify.' And declared, 'Today, we are here to state to the press that we too have nothing to say to a grand jury.'"

None of the fourteen activists asked to testify before a grand jury have been charged with anything, and the coalition is vowing not to testify, refusing to take part in the government's "fishing expedition" against antiwar and other political activists. Weiner makes the point that this kind of governmental repression has a long history, and she vowed she and others would "push back against this attack," and "refuse to be silent" about the government's actions.

The Committee’s statement outlined the U.S. government’s history of using grand juries as tools of repression:

"The grand jury has been used as a tool of political repression against many movements for social change in this country. From the pre-civil war abolitionist movement to the Civil Rights movements, the movement against the war in Vietnam, the American Indian Movement, the Central America solidarity movement, the Puerto Rican Independence movement, animal rights and environmental movements, there have been many targets of political repression and grand jury inquisition."

In a related story by Bill Quigley and Rachel Meeropol at Truthout, Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security (OHS) authorities have released copies of contracted intelligence briefings from an Israeli-connected company, the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), which analyzes a number of left and liberal activist groups that ITRR has been monitoring on behalf of Pennsylvania OHS. The list includes "MoveON.org, the Ruckus Society, Immokalee Workers, the new SDS, Jobs with Justice, the Brandywine Peace Community, ANSWER, PETA, Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty, MOVE, The Yes Men, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Climate Ground Zero, the Rainforest Action Network, pro-Palestinian Groups, Puerto Rican nationalists, prisoners' rights organizations, citizen conservation groups and immigration activists opposing Arizona's crazy attempts to criminalize all noncitizens."

Marian Wang at ProPublica broke the story last month, and since then the director of Pennsylvania's OHS has resigned and the state governor has apologized. But while the exposés and the aftermath of the ProPublica reporting is good news, as the FBI raids and subsequent grand jury summonses demonstrate, state repression against political opponents who stand at all outside the mainstream are being targeted in Barack Obama's America.

Please support these activists with words, deeds, and contributions. They are being targeted today, but tomorrow it could be you or me.

DoJ Inspector General: FBI "Improperly" Spied On Activists

The ACLU has posted a statement regarding the release of the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General report, A Review of the FBI’s Investigations of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups (PDF).

There's a lot to look at and laugh and fear in this report. Nice to know that civil disobedience can be a reason to open a terrorist investigation, or that throwing blood on a federal building or a U.S. flag (are you listening, Sen. Feinstein?) is a “forceful” act that would warrant classifying the act as an act of terrorism, as “wilful injury” to U.S. property is listed (or was in 2002) as an offense in the definition of the federal crime of terrorism. (See page 148 of report as the FBI goes after that notorious group, the Catholic Workers!).

Haven’t by any means read this whole report, which appears a classic partial admission of crimes, without any real accountability, or admission that the sum total of these events represent attacks upon Constitutional rights.

"Improper" says the DoJ IG, not illegal restraints against the first amendment. Just like the actions of Yoo and Bybee were the result of "bad judgment" and not illegal and unprofessional actions by attorneys in thrall to the Executive, hell-bent on torture.

As the ACLU statement makes clear, the FBI has such a long history of breaking the law and targeting individuals for political activity that there is no way this is not a continuation of that history. I'm glad this information is out there, but history also shows that the police and intelligence agencies of the state are highly resistant to reforms. I'm not sure what, under the current political configuration of this country, can be done, but vigiliance and exposure are, for now, our only tools in defending ourselves. If there is to be reform, it will have to be far more stringent that what we have seen in the past.

From the ACLU press release:

Investigation Was Prompted By ACLU FOIA Lawsuit That Turned Up Evidence Of Unlawful Surveillance

WASHINGTON – The FBI improperly spied on American activists involved in First Amendment-protected activities and mischaracterized nonviolent civil disobedience as terrorism which improperly placed activists on terrorist watch lists, according to a report out today by the Justice Department’s Inspector General. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine undertook his investigation after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Civil Liberties Union uncovered evidence that the FBI was chilling political association and improperly investigating peaceful advocacy groups.

The Inspector General (IG) found the improper investigations were often opened based on “factually weak” or even “speculative” justifications, and were sometimes extended in duration without sufficient basis. The IG said that the low standard for opening investigations under the 2002 Attorney General Guidelines, which required only the “possibility” of a federal crime, contributed to the problem.

The FBI also made false and misleading statements to Congress and the American public to mute criticism over its unlawful spying activities, including a false claim that improper surveillance of a 2002 anti-war protest in Pittsburgh was related to a separate, validly approved FBI investigation. This false information was repeated by FBI Director Robert Mueller before Congress and in communications between the Bureau and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

The following can be attributed to Michael German, ACLU Senior Policy Counsel and former FBI agent:

“The FBI has a long history of abusing its national security surveillance powers, reaching back to the smear campaign waged by the American government against Dr. Martin Luther King. Americans peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights were able to become targets of FBI surveillance because spying guidelines that were established after the shameful abuses of the 60s and 70s were loosened in 2002. Unfortunately, they were loosened again in 2008, even after this abuse was uncovered.

“Unless the rules regulating the FBI are strengthened to safeguard the privacy of innocent Americans, we are all in danger of being spied on and added to terrorist watch lists for doing nothing more than attending a rally or holding up a sign.”

See also the take on this story by Marcy Wheeler, while here is the Washington Post story on the report's release.

ACLU: Political Spying by U.S. Law Enforcement on the Rise

Revelations of domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights led to a number of Congressional investigations and new laws in the years after Watergate. In the intervening years, and with accelerated fervor since 9/11, the U.S. government has sought to regain what powers of overarching surveillance it may have lost in the years of the Church and Pike investigations.

A press release today from the ACLU describes the latest ways in which the FBI, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies, now armed with the latest stealth and drone technology, are spying upon and harassing citizens attempting to exercise their right to political speech and affiliation. ACLU's "spyfiles" database, open to the public, looks like it offers much of interest to those of us, bloggers, journalists, attorneys, just-plain-citizens, who are concerned over the movement in the United States towards a full-fledged police state. Do not say it cannot happen here, as it can.

New ACLU Report And Web Hub Reveal Rise In Political Spying Across United States
Review Finds Incidents In At Least 33 States

WASHINGTON – Political surveillance and harassment by U.S. law enforcement agencies are on the rise with incidents reported in at least 33 states since 9/11, according to a review published today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU also announced the launch of a new “Spyfiles” web hub on domestic political surveillance, which will serve as a comprehensive resource on domestic spying.

Political spying – rampant during the Cold War under the FBI’s COINTELPRO, the CIA’s Operation Chaos and other programs – has experienced a steady resurgence in the years following 9/11 as state and local law enforcement are being urged by federal law enforcement agencies to participate in counterterrorism practices.

“In our country, under our Constitution, the authorities aren’t allowed to spy on you unless they have specific and individual suspicion that you are doing something illegal,” said Michael German, ACLU Policy Counsel and former FBI Special Agent. “Unfortunately, law enforcement in our country seems to be reverting to certain old, bad behaviors when it comes to political surveillance. Our review of these practices has found that Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by the police just for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public.

The ACLU released its report of 111 incidents in 33 states and the District of Columbia in conjunction with the launch of its new “Spyfiles” web hub on domestic political surveillance, which will serve as a major new resource on domestic spying for the benefit of reporters, researchers, bloggers and any other interested members of the public. It will include a database of documents obtained through state and federal open-records requests as well as links to news reports and other relevant materials.

“In a democracy, there is no place for political spying or surveillance or the collection of information about routine daily activities of citizens by government,” said German. “The ACLU has been warning against domestic political spying for several years now. From our lawsuits against Defense Department spying in the middle of the past decade, to our work on fusion centers, to our ongoing close cooperation with our affiliates in states across the nation to monitor and combat these activities, the ACLU is determined to prevent the emergence of a domestic secret police apparatus in this country.”

United States law enforcement agencies, from the FBI to local police, have a long history of spying on American citizens and infiltrating or otherwise obstructing political activist groups.

“We are determined to prevent the emergence of a domestic secret police apparatus in this country,” said German. “Yet, as the ACLU’s report shows, these activities continue to take place with a regularity that shows there are systemic problems at work that must be monitored closely.”

The ACLU’s review of domestic surveillance incidents can be found at: www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security/policing-free-speech-police-surveillance-and-obstruction-first-amendme

The ACLU’s Spyfiles page can be found at: www.aclu.org/spyfiles