A coalition of activist groups today has filed a lawsuit against the FBI.  The coalition, which includes the ACLU, Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, is suing for the release of documents it requested under the Freedom of Information Act.  In December, 2004, the ACLU made FOIA requests in 6 states and Washington DC for the release of records related to over 100 individuals.  Through the release of records regarding two of the individuals, the ACLU and its partners are charging the FBI with spying on Americans in an attempt to chill free speech.
The ACLU’s press release can be found here.  Links to the documents obtained so far under the ACLU’s FOIA request can be found here; at that link you can also find summaries of other FOAI requests like this:

Reverend Raymond Payne is a United Methodist Minister from Russell, Kentucky. Last October, Canadian border officials interrogated Reverend Payne for more than an hour as he attempted to enter Canada for a vacation with his wife. According to Reverend Payne, the officials informed him that the interrogation was triggered because he is the subject of an FBI file. Reverend Payne has never been arrested, been charged with a crime, or participated in a protest.

So far, the ACLU has posted copies of redacted FBI docs detailing actions taken in regards to Sarah Bradwell, a Denver community activist, and Scott Silber, an SEIU organizer in Colorado.  Sarah Bradwell is guilty of dissent.  Her guilt is glaringly obvious to the FBI by her association with groups like Food Not Bombs and the Derailler Bicycle Cooperative (which fixes bicycles for poor kids) and the close proximity of her home to the location of the Anarchist Black Cross movement in Denver.  You may want to check your proximity to such groups in your town; if you find you live near one of these radicals, you should move to avoid FBI scrutiny.  The FOAI docs don’t reveal Silber’s crime, although it implies his association with the Anarchist Black Cross movement.

The FBI was gathering this information under the aegis of “pretextual interviews”:

“The interviews reflected in these isolated documents were based on a specific and credible threat received by the FBI regarding potential violent criminal activity that could have caused death or serious bodily injury and was to occur during the Democratic National Convention,” the bureau said in a statement. “It is the FBI’s top priority to prevent any act of terrorism, which requires special agents of the FBI to thoroughly investigate every credible threat received.”

Bardwell, 21, who helped organize antiwar protests on behalf of a local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, said she had no plans to attend either of the political conventions and was troubled by the FBI’s attempt to interview her and her friends. None of the activists consented to the interviews.

“It’s very clear to me that the purpose of those interviews was to intimidate activists in the Denver area from exercising their First Amendment rights,” she said.

So there you have it.  Protest is terrorism.  How much would you bet that “specific and credible threat” information came not from a member of the ABC, but a freepi.  Irregardless, we now know that distribution of vegetarian food free of charge counts as terrorism in the United States.

 

Scott Silber expresses the heart of the matter:

“I shudder to think about being a citizen of a country that would classify my work as if I was a terrorist,” said Silber, 29, a labor-rights consultant who was contacted by an FBI agent last summer.