In yet another sign that the U.S. Constitution is nearly a dead letter, the New York Times reports that the FBI has infiltrated the antiwar movement.
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum."
Conservative fans of Big Government will be pleased to learn that, in the words of civil libertarian Herman Schwartz, "[this surveillance] has a very serious chilling effect on peaceful demonstration. If you go around telling people, `We're going to ferret out information on demonstrations,' that deters people. People don't want their names and pictures in F.B.I. files."
Of course, the government peddles the usual line that it is only trying to identify violent elements and terrorist agitators. Since the antiwar movement is almost entirely peaceful anyway, this argument is without merit.
The U.S.'s degeneration into militarism, as Chalmer Johnson has noted, is irreversible. It will end when the United States does.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Davis
Oh wow, good job, Mike. I just wrote piece on this bit of new-millennium COINTELPRO for the Open Source Politics that will publish in 24 hours.
Scary shit, this is.
2 - Mac Diva
I think we have to expect this. Anytime even the slightest threat to the status quo is perceived, the 'internal security' apparatus, seems to get involved. (National, but also local. One of the funniest things I've seen is the files on 'radicals' kept by the John Birch Society-influenced Portland Police Department through the 1980s. Among the radicals tabs were kept on is our current mayor. She was a supporter of the migrant worker movement.) So, we need to be aware that the person next to us at a rally or meeting may be an infiltrator. One thing I do is try to talk sense to people who are making reckless remarks. They unwittingly provide fodder for the watchers.
3 - jadester
sorry, it's not a degeneration into militarism, but a degeneration into a police state.
i can only hope here in the uk we manage to hold on to at least some of our civil liberties.
anyway, isn't "the right to peaceful protest" meant to be a human right, or something?
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