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Watching them
watching us
F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar
Rallies
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, New York
Times
Published: November 23, 2003
WASHINGTON, 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.
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.
The memorandum, circulated
on Oct. 15 - just 10 days before many thousands gathered in Washington
and San Francisco to protest the American occupation of Iraq
- noted that the bureau "possesses no information indicating
that violent or terrorist activities are being planned as part
of these protests" and that "most protests are peaceful
events."
But it pointed to violence
at protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank as evidence of potential disruption. Law enforcement officials
said in interviews that they had become particularly concerned
about the ability of antigovernment groups to exploit demonstrations
and promote a violent agenda.
"What a great opportunity
for an act of terrorism, when all your resources are dedicated
to some big event and you let your guard down," a law enforcement
official involved in securing recent demonstrations said. "What
would the public say if we didn't look for criminal activity
and intelligence at these events?"
The memorandum urged local
law enforcement officials "to be alert to these possible
indicators of protest activity and report any potentially illegal
acts" to counterterrorism task forces run by the F.B.I.
It warned about an array of threats, including homemade bombs
and the formation of human chains.
The memorandum discussed demonstrators'
"innovative strategies," like the videotaping of arrests
as a means of "intimidation" against the police. And
it noted that protesters "often use the Internet to recruit,
raise funds and coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations."
"Activists may also make
use of training camps to rehearse tactics and counter-strategies
for dealing with the police and to resolve any logistical issues,"
the memorandum continued. It also noted that protesters may raise
money to help pay for lawyers for those arrested.
F.B.I. counterterrorism officials
developed the intelligence cited in the memorandum through firsthand
observation, informants, public sources like the Internet and
other methods, officials said.
Officials said the F.B.I. treats
demonstrations no differently than other large-scale and vulnerable
gatherings. The aim, they said, was not to monitor protesters
but to gather intelligence.
Critics said they remained
worried. "What the F.B.I. regards as potential terrorism,"
Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U. said, "strikes me as civil disobedience."
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
