FBI Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

[1a2b3c]

WASHINGTON (Nov. 22) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.

The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of violence and disruption.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, for instance, have sued the government to learn how their names ended up on a "no fly" list used to stop suspected terrorists from boarding planes. Civil rights advocates have accused federal and local authorities in Denver and Fresno, Calif., of spying on antiwar demonstrators or infiltrating planning meetings. And the New York Police Department this year questioned many of those arrested at demonstrations about their political affiliations, before halting the practice and expunging the data in the face of public criticism.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20031122161109990007&_mpc=news%2e6

[Eric J in MN]

1. Please write a newspaper or Congress about this

Please write a newspaper or Congress about this.

It's not only a violation of civil liberties for the FBI to monitor people for engaging in dissent.

It also means that those agents aren't monitoring the real threat of foreign terrorists who want to launch another massive, murderous attack against Americans.

[NewJeffCT]

2. outrageous

basic civil rights slide further and further away from the people...

[Philosophy]

3. Wait just a second: "counterterrorism squads"?

"...has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads"

This seems suspicious - why is it automatically assumed that "suspicious activity at protests" must be terrorism?

"You're either with us our you're against us"?
Are they "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"?

It's just a matter of time before they start rounding us up and putting us into "Permanent Designated Protest Zones" (aka concentration camps).

In fact at this point I wouldn't be surprised if Bush* sent a huge miltary SWAT team in to bust up the Democratic National Convention.

[Iverson]

4. kick

n/t