The notion that Americans should trust the Bush administration to use its surveillance powers responsibly, and trust federal agencies not to abuse the rules, is getting harder and harder to believe.
An FBI counterterrorism unit monitored — and apparently infiltrated — a peace group in Pittsburgh that opposed the invasion of Iraq, according to internal agency documents released on Tuesday.
The disclosure raised new questions about the extent to which federal authorities have been conducting surveillance operations against Americans since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In this instance, the ACLU released documents obtained from the Freedom of Information Act showing that the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office conducted a secret investigation into the activities of the Thomas Merton Center beginning as early as November 2002, and continuing as late as March 2005.
Why? Because the group distributed fliers in opposition to the war in Iraq.
The report called the group a “left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism.”
The same memo notes that one of the leaflet distributors “appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent” but that no other participants appeared to be from the Middle East.
“All we were doing was handing out leaflets, which is a perfectly legal way to spend an afternoon,” said Tim Vining, the center’s former executive director, who said he participated in the Nov. 24, 2002, protest monitored by the FBI. “All we want to do is exercise our First Amendment rights . . . Is handing out fliers now considered a terrorist activity?”
The ACLU contended that the documents are the first to “show conclusively” that an anti-war group was targeted for “its anti-war views.” “These documents show that Americans are not safe from secret government surveillance, even when they are handing out fliers in the town square, an activity clearly protected by the Constitution,” said Marty Catherine Roper, an ACLU staff attorney.
What strikes me as particularly odd about this is how much the Thomas Merton Center seems to emphasize pacifism. The group describes itself as being committed to a “nonviolent struggle” for peace. Indeed, the FBI’s report even highlighted the group’s advocacy of pacifism.
The whole surveillance effort seems to have been entirely unneccessary, but just on an ideological level, why send a counterterrorism unit after a group that doesn’t believe in violence?