Maine Civil Liberties Union Launches Investigation of FBI Spying
Files FOIA Requests to Uncover Spy Files
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
PORTLAND – The Maine Civil Liberties Union today launched an investigation of FBI surveillance of law-abiding human rights and advocacy groups. According to documents obtained by the MCLU’s parent organization, the ACLU, through a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed in late 2004, the FBI and local police have resumed spying on peace activists, environmental groups, and civil rights leaders around the country. The MCLU has filed its own FOIA requests to expose similar activity in Maine.
“Do Americans really want to return to the days when criticizing the government was grounds for FBI surveillance?” asked Shenna Bellows, Executive Director of the MCLU. “The FBI should be spending its time and our taxpayer dollars in going after the real terrorists – not law-abiding peace and justice activists.”
The MCLU’s clients comprise a Who’s Who of Maine advocates for well-known causes, including the environment, religion, fair trade, grassroots politics, peace, social justice, nuclear disarmament, human rights and civil liberties. Requests were filed on behalf of seven groups and fifteen individuals including among others Peace Action Maine and Veterans for Peace.
“Increased spying will have a chilling effect on people” said Zachary Heiden, Staff Attorney for the MCLU. “Americans will be afraid to criticize the government or to participate in protests for fear that they will be targeted for investigation by the FBI.”
In addition to Maine, the FOIA letters filed today include requests from individuals and groups in Missouri, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. The FOIA letters seek two kinds of information: the actual FBI files of groups and individuals targeted for speaking out, and information about the practices and funding structure of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
In response to widespread complaints from students and political activists who said they were questioned by FBI agents in the months leading up to last summer’s political conventions, the ACLU filed FOIA requests in six states and the District of Columbia in December 2004 on behalf of more than 100 groups and individuals. To date, the ACLU has received fewer than 20 pages in response to the FOIA letters.
The ACLU charged that the FBI is wrongfully withholding thousands of pages of documents, and today filed suit in federal court to compel the FBI to comply with the FOIA requests. The complaint seeks files kept by the FBI on the ACLU, as well as Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
The ACLU said that the few documents received to date through the December FOIA requests shed light on the FBI’s misuse of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to engage in political surveillance. In Colorado, one memo indicates an ongoing federal interest in Food Not Bombs, a group that provides free vegetarian food to hungry people and protests war and poverty.
The same memo suggests that FBI interviews of students Sarah Bardwell and Scott Silber prior to last fall’s political conventions were intended as a means of intimidation. The FBI notes that although they did not obtain information about criminal activity from either student, it was unnecessary to contact others in the area as the “purpose of the interviews was served.”
“The FBI is taking tax dollars and resources established to fight terrorism and instead spying on innocent Americans who have done nothing more than speak out or practice their faith,” said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson “By recruiting the local police into these activities, they are also sowing dissent and suspicion in communities around the country.”
The controversial FBI-led task forces came under scrutiny last month after Portland, Oregon became the first city in the nation to withdraw local law enforcement participation from the JTTFs rather than allow them participate without proper oversight. The JTTF partnerships between the FBI and local police, in which local officers are “deputized” as federal agents, are intended to identify and monitor individuals and groups implicated in terrorism. But the ACLU charges that these task forces are allowing local police officers to target peaceful political and religious groups with no connection to terrorism.
The documents obtained by the ACLU are not the only evidence that the FBI is building files on activists, Beeson said. A classified FBI intelligence memorandum disclosed publicly in November 2003 revealed that the FBI has actually directed police to target and monitor lawful political demonstrations under the rubric of fighting terrorism. This memo is available at http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=14450&c=206
For details and legal papers regarding the FOIA requests filed today by ACLU affiliates around the country, including a list of clients, go to www.aclu.org/spyfiles.
Visit the MCLU Spyfiles page for more information >>>
#####
Contact:
Shenna Bellows. (207) 774-5444, sbellows@mclu.org
Zachary Heiden, MCLU, 207-774-5444; heiden@mclu.org