http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=26542
Inter Press Service News Agency
POLITICS-U.S.:
Groups Probe FBI Spying in 'War on Terror'
William Fisher*
U.S. civil rights groups have filed multiple freedom of information
requests around the country to uncover evidence that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and local police are spying on political, environmental
and faith-based groups in the name of fighting terrorism.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were filed in 10 states and
the District of Columbia (DC) seeking details on the FBI's use of Joint
Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) and local police to engage in political
surveillance.
JTTFs are legal partnerships between the FBI and local police, in which
police officers are "deputised" as federal agents and work with the agency
to identify and monitor individuals and groups.
Filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the FOIAs seek FBI files of groups and
individuals targeted for speaking out or practising their faith, as well as
information on how the practices and funding structure of the JTTFs are
encouraging rampant and unwarranted spying.
"Our goal in this is to learn to the greatest extent possible how much the
FBI is using JTTFs and their guidelines to infiltrate these groups," ACLU
attorney Ben Wizner told IPS.
One of the FOIA requests names organisations such as anti-war group United
for Peace and Justice, Greenpeace, Code Pink, a women-initiated peace and
justice group, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which
might have been monitored by the task forces.
According to Wizner, after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 sparked
the Bush administration's "war on terrorism," Attorney General John
Ashcroft scrapped an FBI guideline -- enacted after the agency infiltrated
numerous groups during the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement -- that
blocked its agents from spying on groups and individuals unless they were
investigating a crime.
By scrapping that policy Ashcroft was, "essentially encouraging FBI agents
to do fishing expeditions to spy in mosques, in anti-war meetings ...
without any reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed," added
Wizner.
ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said her group "supports all efforts to keep
our country safe and we want law enforcement to protect us from real
terrorists and criminals. However, targeting Arabs and Muslims on the basis
of national origin and religion, sending undercover agents to anti-war
meetings, and infiltrating student groups is not making us any safer."
"The FBI should not be wasting its time and our tax dollars spying on
groups that are critical of certain government actions," added the leader
of the Washington, DC-based non-profit group, in a statement.
Earlier this year reports emerged that JTTFs had visited activists around
the country to ask about their plans for August's meeting of the Republican
National Committee (RNC) in New York.
The committee officially nominated President George W Bush to run in the
Nov. 2 election.
''We hadn't even been following (news of the RNC); I didn't even know when
it was going to happen," activist Sarah Bardwell told IPS after being
visited by four FBI agents and two police officers at her Denver home. "I
think (the FBI is) basically just justifying violating people's first
amendment rights (of freedom of religion, speech and assembly),'' she added.
In a statement in August, FBI Assistant Director Cassandra M Chandler
responded that the agency ''is not monitoring groups or interviewing
individuals unless we receive intelligence that such individuals or groups
may be planning violent and disruptive criminal activity or have knowledge
of such activity.''
''The F.B.I. conducted interviews, within the bounds of the U.S.
Constitution, in order to determine the validity of the threat
information,'' she added.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI -- part of the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) -- has vastly stepped up its monitoring and surveillance of
individuals and groups it considers suspicious. It and other law
enforcement agencies have also been given greatly increased authority under
the USA Patriot Act, which was hurriedly enacted and signed into law soon
after the attacks.
The law permits agencies to conduct "sneak and peak" wiretaps and other
forms of surveillance without immediate notification to the target.
The JTTFs, however, existed prior to 9/11.
Groups representing Arab and Muslim-Americans are confused by what appear
to be conflicting signals from the Bush administration.
The government claims to be making serious efforts to "build bridges" to
the constituencies, but simultaneously continues to practise discrimination
and harassment. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, a bi-partisan government
agency, recently reported widespread evidence of racial profiling against
Arab and Muslim-Americans by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and
other law enforcement agencies.
These bodies respond that they are not conducting round-ups in any
community (and are) "not profiling based on race or religious affiliation
(or) instituting a blanket detention policy." But since 9/11, some 5,000
members of the groups have been arrested and detained -- some for long
periods without legal counsel -- but none have been convicted for
terror-related crimes.
The ADC and 15 other human and civil rights groups have filed suits
against the DOJ demanding release of information about people arrested and
detained since Sep. 11, 2001.
Thursday's ACLU/ADC requests "point to many documented examples of JTTF
involvement in the investigation of environmental activists, anti-war
protesters and others who are clearly neither terrorists nor involved in
terrorist activities."
Their actions include: "aggressively questioning Muslims and Arabs on the
basis of religion or national origin rather than suspicion of wrongdoing;
tracking down parents of student peace activists; downloading anti-war
action alerts from Catholic Peace Ministries; infiltrating student groups,
and sending undercover agents to National Lawyers Guild meetings," the
documents allege.
Requests were also filed on behalf of numerous individuals, including an
organiser for the Service Employees International Union, a former Catholic
priest and student activists.
"They will say that a group whose means may include engaging in a sit-in
to block traffic or who in the past might have had a member who threw a
brick through a window is legitimately investigated by a joint terrorism
task force," said Wizner. "The question is: do we want that kind of civil
disobedience labelled and investigated as terrorism?"
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R. A. Hettinga