FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

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FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 09:58:33 -0800

 

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005J.shtml

 

 

 

FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

By Eric Lichtblau

The New York Times

 

Tuesday 20 December 2005

 

Washington - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of

Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and

intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly,

groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty

and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

 

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no

interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any

investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence

of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

 

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then

attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative

powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web

sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism

leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only

groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest

groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

 

But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's

confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without

warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights

advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between

terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.

 

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned

to conduct surveillance as part of a " Vegan Community Project. "

Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's

" semi-communistic ideology. " A third indicates the bureau's interest

in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

 

The documents, provided to The New York Times over the past week,

came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits

brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year,

the A.C.L.U. has been seeking access to information in F.B.I. files on

about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been

improperly monitored.

 

The F.B.I. had previously turned over a small number of documents

on antiwar groups, showing the agency's interest in investigating

possible anarchist or violent links in connection with antiwar

protests and demonstrations in advance of the 2004 political

conventions. And earlier this month, the A.C.L.U.'s Colorado chapter

released similar documents involving, among other things, people

protesting logging practices at a lumber industry gathering in 2002.

 

The latest batch of documents, parts of which the A.C.L.U. plans

to release publicly on Tuesday, totals more than 2,300 pages and

centers on references in internal files to a handful of groups,

including PETA, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Catholic

Workers group, which promotes antipoverty efforts and social causes.

 

Many of the investigative documents turned over by the bureau are

heavily edited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the

full context of the references and why the F.B.I. may have been

discussing events like a PETA protest. F.B.I. officials say many of

the references may be much more benign than they seem to civil rights

advocates, adding that the documents offer an incomplete and sometimes

misleading snapshot of the bureau's activities.

 

" Just being referenced in an F.B.I. file is not tantamount to

being the subject of an investigation, " said John Miller, a spokesman

for the bureau.

 

" The F.B.I. does not target individuals or organizations for

investigation based on their political beliefs, " Mr. Miller said.

" Everything we do is carefully promulgated by federal law, Justice

Department guidelines and the F.B.I.'s own rules. "

 

A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by

the F.B.I. indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of

activist and protest groups than they had previously thought. In light

of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by

the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the

A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the

Bush administration.

 

" It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible

agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying

on Americans, " said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

 

" You look at these documents, " Ms. Beeson said, " and you think,

wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you

see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the

Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology. "

 

The documents indicate that in some cases, the F.B.I. has used

employees, interns and other confidential informants within groups

like PETA and Greenpeace to develop leads on potential criminal

activity and has downloaded material from the groups' Web sites, in

addition to monitoring their protests.

 

In the case of Greenpeace, which is known for highly publicized

acts of civil disobedience like the boarding of cargo ships to unfurl

protest banners, the files indicate that the F.B.I. investigated

possible financial ties between its members and militant groups like

the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.

 

These networks, which have no declared leaders and are only

loosely organized, have been described by the F.B.I. in Congressional

testimony as " extremist special interest groups " whose cells engage in

violent or other illegal acts, making them " a serious domestic

terrorist threat. "

 

In testimony last year, John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director

of the counterterrorism division, said the F.B.I. estimated that in

the past 10 years such groups had engaged in more than 1,000 criminal

acts causing more than $100 million in damage.

 

When the F.B.I. investigates evidence of possible violence or

criminal disruptions at protests and other events, those

investigations are routinely handled by agents within the bureau's

counterterrorism division.

 

But the groups mentioned in the newly disclosed F.B.I. files

questioned both the propriety of characterizing such investigations as

related to " terrorism " and the necessity of diverting counterterrorism

personnel from more pressing investigations.

 

" The fact that we're even mentioned in the F.B.I. files in

connection with terrorism is really troubling, " said Tom Wetterer,

general counsel for Greenpeace. " There's no property damage or

physical injury caused in our activities, and under any definition of

terrorism, we'd take issue with that. "

 

Jeff Kerr, general counsel for PETA, rejected the suggestion in

some F.B.I. files that the animal rights group had financial ties to

militant groups, and said he, too, was troubled by his group's

inclusion in the files.

 

" It's shocking and it's outrageous, " Mr. Kerr said. " And to me,

it's an abuse of power by the F.B.I. when groups like Greenpeace and

PETA are basically being punished for their social activism. "

 

 

 

Go to Original

 

FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries into PETA, Other Rights Groups

By Spencer S. Hsu

The Washington Post

 

Tuesday 20 December 2005

 

FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S.

advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and

other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as

it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the

activity.

 

The documents, disclosed as part of a lawsuit that challenges FBI

treatment of groups that planned demonstrations at last year's

political conventions, show the bureau has opened a preliminary

terrorism investigation into People for the Ethical Treatment of

Animals, the well-known animal rights group based in Norfolk.

 

The papers offer no proof of PETA's involvement in illegal

activity. But more than 100 pages of heavily censored FBI files show

the agency used secret informants and tracked the group's events for

years, including an animal rights conference in Washington in July

2000, a community meeting at an Indiana college in spring 2003 and a

planned August 2004 protest of a celebrity fur endorser.

 

The documents show the FBI cultivated sources such as a " well

insulated " PETA insider, who attended the 2000 meeting to gain

credibility " within the animal rights/Ruckus movements. " The FBI also

kept information on Greenpeace and the American-Arab

Anti-Discrimination Committee, the papers show.

 

The disclosure comes amid recent revelations about the extent of

domestic spying by the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist

attacks. Those disclosures include the expansion within the United

States of military intelligence and databases covering, among others,

peace activists; increased use of " national security letters " by the

FBI to examine personal records of tens of thousands of citizens; and,

most recently, warrantless eavesdropping of overseas telephone calls

and e-mails by U.S. citizens suspected of ties to terrorists.

 

ACLU leaders contend that the memos show that FBI and government

Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country have expanded the

definition of domestic terrorism to people who engage in mainstream

political activity, including nonviolent protest and civil disobedience.

 

" The FBI should use its resources to investigate credible threats

to national security instead of spending time tracking innocent

Americans who criticize government policy, or monitoring groups that

have not broken the law, " ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson

said. Previously released papers showed that the FBI kept files that

mentioned the organizations, she said, " But we didn't know that they

actually launched counterterrorism investigations into these groups. "

 

FBI officials said that the agency is not using the threat of

terrorism to suppress domestic dissent and that is has no alternative

but to investigate if a group or its members have ties to others that

are guilty or suspected of violence or illegal conduct.

 

" As a matter of policy, the FBI does not target individuals or

organizations for investigation because of any political belief.

Somewhere, there has to be a crime attached, " FBI spokesman John

Miller said. " At the same time, the fact that you have ties to an

organization or political beliefs does not make you immune from ending

up in FBI files when you go and commit a crime. "

 

The status of the PETA inquiry is unclear. Justice Department

spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said: " The Justice Department does not

comment on or confirm the existence of criminal investigations. All

matters referred to the department by the intelligence agencies for

purposes of further investigation are taken seriously and thoroughly

reviewed. "

 

PETA general counsel Jeff Kerr called the FBI's conduct an abuse

of power that punishes activists for speaking out.

 

" These documents show a disturbing erosion of freedom of

association and freedom of speech that we've taken for granted and

that set us apart from oppressive countries like the former Iraq, "

Kerr said, adding that the documents show no illegal activity by PETA.

" You shouldn't have to wonder when you go to a speech at a college

campus, or when you go to a meeting, whether you're being surveilled

by the FBI. It goes back to the dark days of Nixon and the enemies list. "

 

John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for

counterterrorism, told a Senate panel in May that environmental and

animal rights militants posed the biggest terrorist threats in the

United States, citing more than 150 pending investigations.

 

The ACLU said it received 2,357 pages of files on PETA,

Greenpeace, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the

ACLU itself. One file referring to the committee included a contact

list for students and peace activists who attended a 2002 conference

at Stanford University aimed at ending sanctions then in place in Iraq.

 

The FBI has said that when it interviewed members of groups

planning demonstrations at last year's conventions, it did not yield

information into criminal activity. But the agency said the interviews

were prompted by specific threats. The latest data lay out a similar,

broader pattern regarding 150 groups whose FBI files the ACLU has

asked to see.

 

For example, a June 19, 2002, e-mail cites a source offering

information on Greenpeace regarding " activists who show a clear

predisposition to violate the law. " Other documents contain suspicions

that PETA funds, supports or otherwise acts as a front for

" eco-terrorist " groups that use arson, bombs or vandalism, such as the

Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front.

 

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