FBI Publicly Denies Spying on Protesters

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/7349300.htm

WASHINGTON - Senior FBI officials took the unusual step Tuesday of publicly declaring that agents are not using the war against terrorism as a cover to collect information on people who demonstrate against the government.

John Pistole, assistant FBI director for counterterrorism, told The Associated Press in an interview that recent allegations by civil liberties groups and some members of Congress about such an intelligence effort are "flat-out wrong."

"We have to have some type of predicate, some foundation, some basis for saying, 'This person poses some type of threat,'" Pistole said. "The endgame is not to collect intelligence for political purposes. The endgame is to prevent terrorism or criminal activity."

The FBI also posted on its Internet site a copy of a letter to the editor of The New York Times, which reported on the issue Sunday, as well as the text of a once-confidential FBI document about protests.

Some members of Congress are calling for hearings into an FBI bulletin sent to more than 17,000 state and local police agencies on Oct. 15. It warned about anti-war protests being planned for later that month in Washington and San Francisco and urged authorities to report suspicious behavior to the FBI.

"This report suggests that federal law enforcement may now be targeting individuals based on activities that are peaceful, lawful and protected under our Constitution," Sen. John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat who is running for president, said in a letter sent Monday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
<snip>

[david_vincent]

1. Well, the FBI may be right on this one

Plausible deniability... the FBI doesn't have to go spying on people when they have municipal police departments, such as the Denver P.D., doing it for them.
Could anyone be so naive as to think that the Denver P.D. and other municipal and state police forces don't share their data?

[proud patriot]

2. okay sure I believe it

NOT

[nuxvomica]

3. The burden of proof is on the FBI now

This sentence represents the type of weak argument used to justify police states:

There are also concerns that terrorists might target protests with suicide bombers or use the crowds as cover to do surveillance of their own on government buildings or installations.

Yeah, like protests are excellent cover for surveillance. Puh-lease!

[rocktivity]

9. I'm no James Bond, but

...terrorists might target protests with suicide bombers or use the crowds as cover to do surveillance of their own on government buildings or installations.

Why would terrorists harm people who are PROTESTING the war? And if they wanted to go undercover, wouldn't it make more sense for them to infiltrate Bush SUPPORTERS? What is going to give a terrorist more access to the Pretzel-Dunce, masquerading as a protestor, or masquerading as a supporter?


rocknation

[gratuitous]

4. "We have to have some type of predicate"???

I don't know who Mr. Pistole thinks he's fooling with this nonsense, but it's not me. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the feds and their catspaws don't need any sort of color of law to spy on people or tap their phones, or open their mail.

I just wish that they'd train the incompetent gibronies they have tapping my phone -- it's getting real old having to click the receiver three or four times before I can get a dial tone.

[mhr]

5. Denial, Oldest Ploy In The Book, Said The Same Thing In The Sixties

The problem is that our society has become so fractured that there is little to no trust left.

Without basic trust, all the good intentions of any government agency amount to nothing.

Folks, ultimately we are heading towards a revolution in this country because the ultra-wealthy and corporations will not share the wealth and power.

Eventually, people will have had enough.

Read the following and thank about yourself in 10 years when the middle class is destroyed and your job is gone.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/997103.asp
"A New Kind Of Poverty"

[louis-t]

6. 'We have to have some kind of..

predicate' They have it. Ashcroft won't stand for anyone who disagrees with Bush. Fill in the blanks later. As for 'the end game is to prevent...criminal activity', it is the Justice Dept. definition of 'criminal' that is so scary.

[goforit]

7. When they REALLY search Chenny's office and the WH, that will be proof

Well, ......The FBI's letter alone to 17,000 areas has broken trust with the public and they may never earn it back till the Bushistas
are out of office.

Enjoy your own demise, FBI.

[Chomskyite]

8. I call bullshit on this one

They were out in force at our anti-war protest in Baton Rouge, for Christ's sake. Baton Rouge isn't exactly what you'd call a hotbed of agitation.

See here for my account of what happened:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/calaf/2003/03/29/

[teryang]

10. I guess I'll have to take their word for it.

Since the fourth Amendment is gone and they no longer have to convince a judge that their sneek and peek searches are based on anything other than not liking what you say.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. That's what they said back in the 1960s and 1970s. They were...

...lying then, too.