Nostalgic for Nixon?

I thought we’d made some progress since J Edgar Hoover headed the FBI, but maybe not.  This is a really disturbing story I heard as I listened to today’s show  from Democracy Now.  You may recall that the FBI raided homes of peace activists in Minnesota and Chicago back in September.  Here’s one of those villainous peace activists from back then.

Most of these folks are aligned with Palestinian solidarity groups.  In the fall, subpoenas to appear before a grand jury were served on 13 of the activists.  The subpoenas were later withdrawn when the activists asserted their fifth amendment rights.  Many of us thought the situation had ended there.  We were wrong.  Three of those people who were the subject of raids were reissued subpoenas earlier this month.  (Happy Holidays!!  Peace On Earth!!!)  Democracy Now picks up the story with an additional subpoena that was issued to a “Chicago-based activist and journalist involved in Palestinian solidarity work—at least the 23rd person subpoenaed since September”.

I found some information on a peace rally in front of the Dirksen Federal Building this month in Chicago from the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. (Yeah, that HAS to be a terrorist group!)  It’s dated December 9, 2010. This piece not only mentions the Palestinian solidarity connections but also Colombian connections.

A  group of about 100 activists braved frigid temperatures to protest the latest round of FBI subpoenas in front of the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago Monday night.

The FBI issues summons to appear before a federal grand jury to three college students Friday. They are scheduled to appear on Jan. 25, said their attorney Jim Fennerty of the National Lawyers Guild. The women are being targeted because they traveled to the Palestinian occupied territory of the West Bank, he added.

The new subpoenas bring to 17 the number of activists throughout the Midwest that have been targeted by the FBI for their Palestinian and Colombian solidarity work.

Amy Goodman’s piece at Democracy Now has more details. (Shameless Plug:  Please PLEASE keep Democracy Now on your charitable giving list). Notice there’s also a recent Supreme Court decision that has put peace activities in the FBI’s cross hairs.

All those subpoenaed have been involved with antiwar activism that’s critical of U.S. foreign policy. Details on the grand jury case remain scarce, but the subpoenas cited federal law prohibiting, quote, “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” In June, the Supreme Court rejected a free speech challenge to the material support law from humanitarian aid groups that said some of its provisions put them at risk of being prosecuted for talking to terrorist groups about nonviolent activities.

I have to admit that I have a particular interest in this because I have an FBI file from the 1970s.  They actually read my mail coming to my dorm room.  It was because I was a member of the University of Nebraska’s University Women’s Action Group and was actively working to change the state’s “rape” law at the time and to get sexual assault and battery  crimes moved out of property crimes divisions in police departments and into major crime units.  Some one broke into the car of the NOW State Coordinator, took her mailing list, and suddenly, all of us noticed that our mail never made it to us without ever having a broken envelope seal.  It was bizarre.  It didn’t last long because I think at some point either Ford or Carter must’ve put an end to it.  Nixon was even out of office by that time.  Believe me, I was hardly a radical or a threat at the time.  I thought the ‘thought police’ thing had kind’ve gone by the wayside after the Nixon/Ford years but, boy does that seem to be a wrong assessment.

So, Amy Goodman interviewed several of the people involved in the recent FBI and grand jury activity.  Here’s an account of the recent ordeal by Peace Activist Tracy Holm.

Right now, our individual lawyers are being called into meetings with the District Attorney, Fox, in Chicago. They’re essentially trying to scare us into talking, to naming names and giving them a case against the movement and against the people that we have worked with historically to fight for justice for the people of Palestine and the people of Colombia.

I’m really curious about the Colombia thing.  Do you know of any suicide bombers, etc. from Colombia?  So, the interview continues by bringing in  “Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent who was named by Time Magazine Woman of the Year for her exposure of the problems in intelligence by the FBI pre-9/11″.  She is interviewed by Juan Gonzalez.

Well, you know, after 9/11, we almost—there was a green light put on, and there was a very big blurring between protest, civil disobedience and terrorism. And you saw this in many ways. The door was open to basically targeting, without any level of factual justification, advocacy groups. And again, this began pretty quickly after 9/11.

It’s gotten to the point now, nine years later—and I wanted to mention the Washington Post is doing a pretty good job of exposing this, this top-secret America, this monitoring. Their most recent article in the Washington Post says there’s a hundred—the FBI has 164,000 suspicious activity reports. Again, these are things that just have no level of factual justification, that people call in, and the FBI is now keeping records on people. So, I think that, you know, this case will just be the start of targeting various groups like this.

Are we now back in the place that we were in the 1970s where just being an activist for Social Justice gets you onto some one’s radar?  Because, if we are, I’m thinking my email and mail are going to be read again.  Does this trouble you the way it troubles me?