l'articolo del NYtimes che rivela la schedatura dei pacifisti

["nello margiotta" <nellomargiotta55 at virgilio.it>]

F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: November 23, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/national/23FBI.html


ASHINGTON, Nov. 22 - 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.
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The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last
month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco,
detailed how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to rehearse for
demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against
tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting
demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation
to get into a secured site.
F.B.I. officials said in interviews that the intelligence-gathering effort
was aimed at identifying anarchists and "extremist elements" plotting
violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters.
The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a
critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some
law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had
helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months,
drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of
violence and disruption.
But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring
program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when
J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on
political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The F.B.I. is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing
more than lawful protest and dissent," said Anthony Romero, executive
director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The line between terrorism
and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern
about whether we're going back to the days of Hoover."
Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American University who
has written about F.B.I. history, said collecting intelligence at
demonstrations is probably legal.
But he added: "As a matter of principle, it 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."
The abuses of the Hoover era, which included efforts by the F.B.I. to harass
and discredit Hoover's political enemies under a program known as
Cointelpro, led to tight restrictions on F.B.I. investigations of political
activities.
Those restrictions were relaxed significantly last year, when Attorney
General John Ashcroft issued guidelines giving agents authority to attend
political rallies, mosques and any event "open to the public."
Mr. Ashcroft said the Sept. 11 attacks made it essential that the F.B.I. be
allowed to investigate terrorism more aggressively. The bureau's recent
strategy in policing demonstrations is an outgrowth of that policy,
officials said.
"We're not concerned with individuals who are exercising their
constitutional rights," one F.B.I. official said. "But it's obvious that
there are individuals capable of violence at these events. We know that
there are anarchists that are actively involved in trying to sabotage and
commit acts of violence at these different events, and we also know that
these large gatherings would be a prime target for terrorist groups."
Civil rights advocates, relying largely on anecdotal evidence, have
complained for months that federal officials have surreptitiously sought to
suppress the First Amendment rights of antiwar demonstrators.
Critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, for instance, have sued
the government to learn how their names ended up on a "no fly" list used to
stop suspected terrorists from boarding planes. Civil rights advocates have
accused federal and local authorities in Denver and Fresno, Calif., of
spying on antiwar demonstrators or infiltrating planning meetings. And the
New York Police Department this year questioned many of those arrested at
demonstrations about their political affiliations, before halting the
practice and expunging the data in the face of public criticism.
The F.B.I. memorandum, however, appears to offer the first corroboration of
a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect intelligence regarding
demonstrations.