FBI Keeps Watch on Activists

[struggle4progress]

By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
March 27, 2006

DENVER — The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, the agency's internal memos show. <snip>

"They don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but they're spending money watching people like me," said environmental activist Kirsten Atkins. Her license plate number showed up in an FBI terrorism file after she attended a protest against the lumber industry in Colorado Springs in 2002. <snip>

The FBI's Denver office also monitored a February 2003 antiwar demonstration in Colorado Springs. A bureau memo said that activists planned to block streets and an Air Force base entrance, and that a more "radical" faction had announced online that it would meet near the demonstration but break away for unspecified purposes. The memo said an agent would watch the breakaway group and report to local police and FBI agents monitoring the march. <snip>

"We've kind of gathered up our skirts and pulled in," said Sarah Bardwell, who works for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group. Along with some activist roommates, she has also volunteered for Food Not Bombs. <snip>

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-fbi27mar27,0,4816622.story?page=1&coll=la-news-environment

[longship]

1. Oh NO!!! Not the vegetarians!!!!

We must rid the world of vegetarianism!! People need to eat meat, especially lots of steaks and buffalo burgers, or roast with mashed potatoes and smothered in gravy. That's the Murcan way.

These vegetarians eat things like broccoli and garbanzo beans and all that other communistic stuff. I say stamp it all out by Stamping out vegetarians. We need to round them up and put them in camps where they will be force fed rare steak morning, noon, and night.
:sarcasm:

[NMMNG]

8. You know how it is

If they don't support the beef and dairy industry, they are obviously up to no good. :rofl:

[niyad]

2. and in colorado springs, the local police teargassed the peace

protestors, having told them to disband, and then blocking their way to their cars. what the HELL is wrong with the fbi, etc? I mean, listing quakers as a possible terrorist group? do they have the slightest F****** idea WHAT they are supposed to be doing?

[struggle4progress]

3. Peace protesters just irritate the h3ll out of some Neaderthals. eom

[Southsideirish]

6. They are soooooo dumb and they NEVER learn a damn thing. Just like

the '60's - once more we were right and they were wrong. It happens so often it is pathetic and they still stick to their emotion laden moronic "traditional," backward thinking, hippie hatin' "values."

[Faux pas]

4. Yeah, all the terrorists are hanging out at public demonstrations.

Maybe they think they'll find bin Laden there. ;)

[enough]

5. k&r

[ClayZ]

7. The Republican Party should be on the top of that list!

"Any group can have somebody that goes south."

[haab]

9. sad times for activists....

.... it's just not worth it any more.

[patriothackd]

10. The FBI has always done this

By the time the sixties rolled around it was a 50 year old tradition. Old J. Edgar practically invented the idea of spying on everyone else. Not just activists. Presidents. Senators. Supreme Court Justices. He got the dirt on everyone and in the sixties, they just expanded that to hiding in plain sight to get dirt on activists.


Read your history, that's how we do things in this country.

Oh, sorry, you mean you believed America's sales literature about itself? Most of what we learned about America in school was like a commercial, but they never told you when you try to take it home half the time it's gonna break.

[cinemaactivist]

11. Hello

Didn't everyone know this already? Ever been to a "radical" protest where people end up getting arrested? Look for the guys with camera's, usually wearing suits. I'm sure a lot of us have FBI files. And I'm sure we are all going to bomb the white house or something, right? Ha. They need to spend their time on people that are actually dangerous and not people fighting to change the patriarical society we call home.