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Ripley

Amongst other activists for peace.

DOJ Probe Reveals FBI Conducted Surveillance on Greenpeace, Antiwar Activists

Tuesday 21 September 2010
by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report
The Thomas Merton Center, located in a humble storefront in Pittsburgh, is an inviting social justice space where visitors can pick up some pamphlets on non-violent civil disobedience or hold a community potluck. The center, named for an activist and Trappist monk, proudly promotes pacifism, but that didn’t prevent the FBI from spying on Merton Center activists in 2002, branding them terrorists and then later lying about it to Congress.


That was one of the critical findings of a report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.


The report said that between 2001 and 2006, the FBI also kept tabs on a Seattle antiwar activist as well as individuals affiliated with Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Catholic Workers and Quakers. The agency improperly placed these activists on terrorist watch lists, according to the report.


The report found that the FBI gave inaccurate and misleading information to Congress and the public in 2006 when it claimed that an agent who spied on an anti-war rally organized by Thomas Merton Center activists was investigating individuals with possible links to terrorism.


The surveillance of a Merton center rally in November 2002, which consisted of antiwar activists distributing information in a public space, was “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day,” according to the report. The FBI's surveillance of the rally was initially revealed via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which subsequently sparked Fine's probe.
The report said an agent asked his superior for something to do on a slow day of work, and he was directed to monitor the rally for potential terrorism suspects. Fine's investigation found that the agent’s “make work” assignment had nothing to do with any specific terrorism investigation.


But that’s not what the media and Congress were told in 2006 when Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller as to whether his agency was using its enhanced counterterrorism capabilities to spy on Merton Center activists and other law-abiding Americans because of their opposition to the Iraq war.
In his testimony, Mueller said the agent who attended the Merton Center rally was there to identify an individual with potential links to terrorism. The FBI also asserted this in a press release.


The inspector general’s investigation, however, revealed that the agent who attended the rally was not tracking specific individuals, although the FBI operatives in Pittsburgh made up two conflicting stories about a local Muslim activist and a “Person B” to cover-up their decision to spy on the activists.
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The report concluded that the FBI did not investigate the Thomas Merton Center based on its antiwar activism, rather the surveillance was based on the poor judgment of agents. Moreover, the investigation found that a 2003 memo circulated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force created an “inaccurate representation” that the Merton Center was the subject of an international terrorism investigation.


The report was harshly critical of the FBI for planting an informant to collect information on the Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG), a Merton Center affiliate and anarchist group. Fine concluded that the informant's attendance in POG meetings between 2004 and 2005 had nothing to do with trying to obtain intelligence about terrorism and was likely a violation of the Privacy Act” and the “First Amendment rights of individuals.”
“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,” said Michael German, ACLU Senior Policy Counsel and former FBI agent.


“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.”

The inspector general’s report recommends that the FBI tighten investigative guidelines review the difference between First Amendment-related cases, like those involving non-violent civil disobedience, and cases involving actual terrorist threats. The ACLU, however, is pushing for more substantial changes.


“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,” German said.

Mid

old habits die hard

ZCommunications | 'The U.S. vs. John Lennon' by Jon Wiener | ZNet Article

Tunaka

Remember when a peaceful anti-war activist was pulled over by the state patrol (police force) and detained on his way to a peaceful rally?

It happened.

The guy sued in civil court and won. No criminal charges of false arrest and imprisonment, though.

Ripley

When we first invaded Iraq, I think it was March or so a friend and I went out every day for months at 5 o'clock PM to hold signs..

Police were livid, tried to intimidate us but they backed down but would watch us as if we cared..


When man tried to run me over in his truck, they neglected to take witness names, etc., etc. Then my business license was revoked,.
Took me 3 years to get compensation but I did

Really kinda sad, what happened to my Country? HOw did a bunch of rabid haters get their fangs into it?

keda

Thank you for reporting this, Ripley, it really is terrible that peaceful Quakers are listed as terrorists while peaceful terrorists are not. And I'm glad you were paid off by the police, whatever you got couldn't have been enough to comp for your rights being abused. Well done.

Indian Jones

Ah, Keda. You are funny, twisting reality like that.

I find Ripley\'s account of his travails disturbing as the police\'s actions are eerily similar to the authority\'s actions in Germany during memorable events like the Reichskristallnacht.

The state must uphold its ideals, in this case the fundamentals of its existence, and if it doesn\'t it is no better than those it abhors

sabang

Quakers are one of the few practitioners of religion that i can admire.
How fucked up is this??

keda

Sure the state must uphold its ideals. But who's to say what those ideals should be while entire societies are in the throes of unprecedented upheaval and uncertainty? Yours may stress individual rights while I go with the state...why should your views outrank mine or vice versa? Maybe that's why we have governments, so others can make the decisions while we we move the pieces around secure in the knowledge that we could never be wrong.

It's not like we don't know our elected weasels and protectors can't cope with the modern world or that they're not to be trusted, so why the shocked horror when it comes on top. One way to have an easy life is to raise the bar higher for some and lower it for others, then we have more to scowl at and less to forgive.

But where there is doubt I believe the authorities should err on the side of caution, caution being to protect the people and as you say - the state - over the individual. We've been through this several times before and invariably it's those that stand staunchly for the 'god-given' rights of the individual that are first in line with the largest stones when the authorities err on the side of those same rights resulting in carnage.

Each to their own but I'd rather put my lot in with a random crew of spooks than 'proud pacifists'. Anyway, is it so incomprehensible for 'peace activists' and anti-war groups to turn violent or to be used as a cover for violence? Never happened before, has it!

Tunaka

Ripley,

Can you provide more details. What city was this in?

How did they revoke your business license? In what industry?

If true, this is, very disturbing.