Problems With Patriot Act

What You Read And What You Say Can Result In Visits By the FBI

The FBI has followed up on thousands of “tips” since the attacks of 9/11. In June, Atlanta bookstore employee Marc Schultz found himself visited by FBI agents after someone spotted him reading an article titled “Weapons of Mass Stupidity” at a local coffee shop.

In late April, two teen-age students in Oakland, California, got an unwelcome, real-life lesson in civics. During a heated class discussion at Oakland High School about politics and President Bush, the boys made comments the exact nature of which are in dispute, but which their teacher believed constituted a threat toward the president. The teacher went to the FBI.

Secret Service agents showed up at the high school the next day to interview the boys, both 16. The school principal sat in for an hour and a half as agents interviewed each student individually, without their parents’ knowledge or consent. “He asked us questions like was I a good shooter ... was I a good sniper ... am I good dealing with guns, and what are my thoughts on the president,” one of the boys told San Francisco Bayview. “I was very scared. I was crying because of what they said to us.

The FBI contacted the San Francisco Independent Media Center after 9/11, according to Ian MacKenzie, a volunteer at the center, to investigate what they said was a posting threatening the president. Agents wanted user logs for the group’s Web site, “which we don’t have,” MacKenzie says, “so we couldn’t give to them.” He says federal agents have contacted Indymedia centers around the country in efforts to discover the identities of specific online posters. “What it tells me,” he says, “is that they keep track of us, and that they watch independent media centers.”

Is MacKenzie paranoid? Maybe not. In March, San Francisco police told the San Francisco Chronicle that they routinely monitored the center’s Web site, and infiltrated demonstrations announced on the site. San Francisco police also said they routinely videotape large demonstrations.

Ignoring a city prohibition against the collection of First Amendment-related intelligence, the Denver Police developed files on 208 organizations and 3,200 individuals. The department appears to have continued its surveillance until the fall of 2002, despite the ACLU lawsuit. Monitored groups included the American Friends Service Committee (a pacifist Quaker group), Amnesty International and many others with no history of criminal activity. Documents obtained by the ACLU describe how police intercepted e-mails, recorded the license plate numbers of vehicles at demonstrations, and infiltrated advocacy group meetings.

Ashcroft’s Justice Department also advises police officers in at least some states to gather information on “enemies in our own backyard.” In a police training manual titled “A Police Response to Terrorism in the Heartland: Integrating Law Enforcement Intelligence and Community Policing” officers are encouraged to investigate members of the “Green Movement”—defined as “environmental activism that is aimed at political and social reform with the explicit attempt to develop environmental-friendly policy, law and behavior.”

In February, Newsweek reported that the FBI plans to set investigative and wiretap goals based on demographic information, including the number of mosques in an area. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, or Patriot II, which Congress will take up in the coming months, would also eliminate municipal agreements that limit investigations and intrusive monitoring. “This is not simply a random circumstance,” says the ACLU’s Yohnka, “but appears to be part of a larger, broader pattern coming out of Washington, D.C.”