-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: April 3, 2007 11:08:42 AM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Secret FBI Unit Interrogated Antiwar Protestors, Asked If
They Believed in Jesus
Police Log Confirms
[Previously Denied] FBI Role In Arrests
Group Detained, Questioned During D.C. War Protest
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post, April 3, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/
AR2007040201568_pf.html
A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war
protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002
and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political
and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.
For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened.
The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an
incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were
present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that
afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for
milling around the parking garage entrance.
But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed
D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident.
Lawyers for the demonstrators said the logs, which police say they
just found, bolster their allegations of civil rights violations.
The probable cause to arrest the protesters as they retrieved food
from their parked van? They were wearing black -- a color choice
the FBI and police associated with anarchists, according to the
police records.
FBI agents dressed in street clothes separated members to question
them one by one about protests they attended, whom they had spent
time with recently, what political views they espoused and the
significance of their tattoos and slogans, according to interviews
and court records.
The revelations, combined with protester accounts, provide the
first public evidence that Washington-based FBI personnel used
their intelligence-gathering powers in the District to collect
purely political intelligence. Ultimately, the protesters were not
prosecuted because there wasn't sufficient evidence of trespassing,
and their arrest records were expunged.
Similar intelligence-gathering operations have been reported in New
York, where a local police intelligence unit tried to infiltrate
groups planning to protest at the Republican National Convention in
2004, and in Colorado, where records surfaced showing that the FBI
collected names and license plates of people protesting timber
industry practices at a 2002 industry convention.
Several federal courts have ruled that intelligence agencies can
monitor domestic groups only when there is reason to believe the
group is engaged in criminal activity. Experts in police conduct
say it is hard to imagine how asking questions about a person's
political views would be appropriate in a trespassing case.
The Washington case centers on activities that took place April 20,
2002 -- a day of three cacophonic but generally orderly rallies
that drew an estimated 75,000 people to the Mall. They included
groups demonstrating against the prospect of war in Iraq, numerous
supporters of the war, and Palestinians and others rallying for an
end to U.S. aid to Israel and for peace in the Middle East.
The police logs for that day show how events developed: Secret
Service agents had some concern about a group near the JBG Co.
building's garage at 1275 K St. NW just after 5 p.m.
"Intell 53 advises that five members of the anarchist group have
entered a parking garage," reads an entry from 5:12 p.m.
Ten minutes later, an entry notes the FBI's role.
"FBI, JOCC advises that an FBI intell team is responding to area of
13th and K/L Streets regarding a report of alleged anarchists in
the vicinity," it reads. "There are reportedly 15 anarchists at
13th and K being interviewed. The subjects reportedly had a passkey
to a building, but it's unknown how they came to be in possession
of it."
The entry notes that D.C. police also were at the site. The
protesters were detained at the garage for more than an hour, logs
show, until police decided to arrest them for alleged unlawful entry.
D.C. police officials acknowledged in 2003 that the department had
a secret intelligence unit that infiltrated and monitored protest
groups in the Washington area, even if authorities had no evidence
of criminal activity. The practice drew complaints from the D.C.
Council, and police promised to develop guidelines.
The Partnership for Civil Justice, a civil liberties group, helped
11 protesters sue D.C. police in 2003 and the FBI last year,
alleging that the questioning and detentions violated their civil
rights.
In response to the suit, D.C. police at first said that no police
intelligence officials were involved in the arrests. Last year,
city officials revealed under additional questioning that five
members of the police intelligence unit were present.
The plaintiffs argue that the newly released police logs make clear
that the FBI, working hand in hand with local police, is engaged in
a concerted effort to spy on and intimidate U.S. citizens who are
lawfully exercising their free-speech rights. They contend that
this is a national effort that abuses the FBI's broad
counterterrorism powers and equates political speech with a risk to
national security.
"It really is a secret police: This is an effort to suppress
political dissent," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership
for Civil Justice.
"If this was happening in another country that the U.S. was
targeting, U.S. officials at the highest levels would be decrying
this as a violation of human rights."
FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the agency stands by its
assertion in court filings that it maintains no records of the
incident.
A law enforcement official familiar with joint operations during
protests said it would be typical for the FBI to hand over records
of questioning to the lead agency -- in this case, the D.C. police.
D.C. police said authorities only recently found the logs of police
responses to that day's events. That discovery came after three
years of police assurances in federal court that no such records or
logs existed showing the FBI's role.
The records turned up on the eve of a deposition in which a police
records technician was to be questioned about the existence of a
routine log that his office is responsible for maintaining during
any mass protest in Washington.
Sgt. Joe Gentile, a D.C. police spokesman, referred questions to
the D.C. attorney general's office.
Traci Hughes, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, said
the city's lawyers never intentionally misrepresent evidence to the
court and come forward when discrepancies turn up.
"We have to rely upon information that the client gives us," Hughes
said, adding that police turned over the log as soon as they
learned it existed.
In November, as the Partnership for Civil Justice continued to try
to get police records of the event, the FBI officials argued that
the lawsuit against the agency should be dismissed. They said that
the bureau had no relevant records and that if the FBI ever had any
records, they had been disposed of when protesters' arrest records
were expunged, or "they remain unidentifiable for other reasons."
Justice Department attorneys noted, however, that questioning
people in a criminal investigation was not improper.
In their lawsuit, the partnership and protesters said the FBI's
political and religious questioning was "wholly unrelated to any
legitimate activities of law enforcement" and violated their free
speech rights under the First Amendment. They noted that some of
the protesters had parked their van in the garage and were merely
retrieving food.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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