H
hipsterdufus
Two of the groups I work with in Pittsburgh - The Thomas Merton Center and the Pittsburgh Branch of the ACLU held a press conference Tuesday stating that they had conclusive proof the FBI had them under surveillance. You would think there are better ways of spending our tax dollars than spying on Americans protesting the Iraq war.
I was at the Novemeber 2002 protest referenced in the story.
Here's the story:
I was at the Novemeber 2002 protest referenced in the story.
Here's the story:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060314-1158-security-fbi.htmlFBI documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act and provided to reporters show the FBI conducted surveillance of the Pittsburgh-based Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice at anti-war demonstrations and leaflet distributions in 2002 and 2003.
FBI officials in Pittsburgh said the bureau was engaged in legitimate investigations, and in one case dropped the probe upon determining a person photographed at one demonstration was not whom they were looking for.
“We had a legitimate purpose for being there,” FBI special agent Bill Crowley said, referring to a November 2002 protest.
The ACLU said the spying fit a pattern of federal abuse following the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush has generally received high marks from the public for taking a strong hand in security matters.
The FBI acknowledged the report sounded as if it were reporting on the activities of an anti-war group, but said ”such a characterization would be factually misleading.”
The agent was pursuing leads “from another source possibly establishing a link between an ongoing investigation and the group engaging in anti-war protests. Finding no such link, he terminated his surveillance,” the FBI said in a statement.
“We know that this surveillance is about the political views of the Thomas Merton Center because that's what the documents say,” said Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the Pittsburgh ACLU.
Merton Center director Jim Kleissler said his group filed the request for FBI documents because its members believed they were being spied on by the FBI in 2002 and 2003 while they protested against the imminent war in Iraq.
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