Vol. 74/No. 39      October 18, 2010

The FBI operations were conducted against antiwar groups, including the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, Greenpeace USA and other environmental groups, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Catholic Worker organization, Quaker peace activists in Seattle, and others.

The spy operations were first unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2006 based on information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department limited its investigation to operations carried out during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The operations were conducted as “anti-terrorism” investigations under new FBI guidelines instituted after Sept. 11, 2001, that expanded secret police spying. These guidelines were loosened further in 2008.

The Justice Department report describes how the cops and their informers attended meetings, took pictures of participants, and opened and maintained ongoing spy files. In a number of cases, activists targeted were placed into the government’s Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File “watch list.” Having their names pop up on a watch list has caused thousands of people to be harassed when trying to travel by plane.

The spy operation against the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh began in 2002. Informers were sent in to “look for international terrorists.” One photographed a woman he thought was of “Middle Eastern descent” to have her checked by “terrorism analysts.”

One agent’s reports described the Merton Center as a “left-wing organization” advocating pacifism and opposing the growing war in Iraq. It said nothing about the center being a terrorist group.

After the ACLU released the files concerning this and other FBI operations, the agency worked overtime to create a justification for its intrusion. Agents wrote and backdated memos, claiming that their spies were operating as an “outgrowth of an FBI investigation.”

This cover story was advanced in testimony before Congress by FBI head Robert Mueller, where he asserted that the Pittsburgh agents were trying to “identify an individual” that “we believed” was “in attendance” at a rally at the Merton Center.

The Justice Department report says these postdated rationales were all false. The Merton Center was investigated for its political activities.

Yet the report says that what it describes “did not indicate that the FBI targeted any of the groups for investigation on the basis of their First Amendment activities.”

Even if the spying was justified on grounds that were “factually weak,” the report claims, they were still started as investigation of terrorist threats or potential violence, and therefore justified.

At the same time the report was issued, there were a number of new revelations of FBI spying and ongoing government operations against political activists.

In Iowa, FBI documents about their operations against antiwar activists in Iowa City were released September 20.

FBI informants infiltrated antiwar groups, drawing in other cops from the University of Iowa, the Iowa City Police Department, and the Coralville cops.

“Agents staked out the homes of political activists, secretly photographed and shot video of them, pored through their garbage, and studied their cell phone and motor vehicle records,” the Des Moines Register reported.

Claiming they were looking for plans of violence for antiwar demonstrations at the 2008 Republican National Convention, as many as six cops would attend meetings or stake out gatherings or homes of activists.
 
 
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Law would boost gov’t spying over the Internet
Chicago action protests FBI, grand jury probe  
 
 
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