[News] When COINTELPRO comes calling

[Anti-Imperialist News]

When COINTELPRO comes calling

http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/21/cointelpro-comes-calling

July 22, 2008 By Dave Zirin
Source: <http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/21/cointelpro-comes-calling>SW


FINALLY, AT long last, I have something in common with Muhammad Ali. 
No, I'm not the heavyweight champion of the world, and I haven't been 
named spokesperson for Raid bug spray. Like "the Greatest"--not to 
mention far too many others--I have been a target of state police 
surveillance for activities--in my case, being against the death 
penalty--that were legal, nonviolent and, so we assumed, 
constitutionally protected.

In classified reports compiled by the Maryland State Police and the 
Department of Homeland Security, I am "Dave Z." This nickname was 
given by an undercover agent known to us as "Lucy." She sat in our 
meetings of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, smiling and 
engaged, taking copious notes about actions deemed threatening by the 
then-governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich.

Our seditious crimes, as Lucy reported, involved such acts as 
planning to set up a table at the local farmer's market and writing 
up a petition. Adding a dash of farce to this outrage, she was 
monitoring us in the liberal enclave of Takoma Park, Maryland, a 
place known more for vegans than violence, more for tie-dyeing than terrorism.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and the ACLU, we now know 
that "Lucy" was only one part of a vast, insidious project. The 
Maryland State Police's Department of Homeland Security devoted 
nearly 300 hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars from 2005 and 2006 
to harassing people whose only crime was dissenting on the question 
of the war in Iraq and Maryland's use of death row.

My dear friend Mike Stark, a board member of the Campaign to End the 
Death Penalty is at times referred to in "Lucy's" report as a 
"socialist" and an "anarchist." One can only assume this is the 
pathetic time-honored tradition of reducing people to simple 
caricatures, all the better to garner Homeland Security grant money.

Veteran peace activist in Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, who initiated 
the suit, was also consistently shadowed as he walked down the 
streets. His "primary crime" (their lingo) was entered into the 
homeland security database as "terrorism--anti govern(ment)." His 
"secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism--anti-war protestors." The 
database is known as the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug 
Trafficking Area, or HIDTA.

Yes, a respected peace organizer of many decades standing is checked 
as a terrorist, his actions listed as criminal, for doing nothing 
more than exercising his rights. It boggles the mind.

Former police superintendent Tim Hutchins defended these totalitarian 
practices by saying, "You do what you think is best to protect the 
general populace of the state." (The article mentioned that Hutchins 
is now a federal defense contractor. I guess the global war on terror 
is just the gift that keeps on giving for the Hutchins family.)

But "protect the general populace" from what? The surveillance 
continued even after it was determined that we were planning nothing 
more dangerous that carrying clipboards in a public place. Hutchins 
and the Ehrlich administration have undertaken an ugly violation of 
our civil rights, manipulating fears of terrorism to stamp out dissent.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THIS IS COINTELPRO pure and simple. Like the infamous 
counter-intelligence program, whose heyday many assume was a relic of 
the 1950s and 1960s, it's an effort to harass the innocent and breed 
paranoia, all for daring to question power.

Governor Ehrlich and Tim Hutchins stand in the legacy of those who 
hounded Martin Luther King and facilitated the death of Malcolm X. 
They stand in the tradition of those who drove the great actor, 
college football superstar and activist Paul Robeson toward the 
mental breakdown that claimed his life. When Robeson's files were 
opened under the Freedom of Information Act, the results were terrifying.

As his son, Paul Robeson Jr. has written, "From the files I received, 
it was obvious that there were agents who did nothing but follow 
every public event of my father, or even of me...It took on a life of 
its own...Over time, even for someone as powerful and with as many 
resources as my dad had...the attrition got to him."

Now Robeson is on a postage stamp. The moral midgets who destroyed 
him went unpunished. That's what has to change.

The ACLU, to their credit, is going on the offensive. As ACLU lawyer 
David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore on Thursday, "To 
invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of 
activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything 
criminal going on is shocking. It's Kafkaesque."

Unfortunately, it is also "the most All-American of activities" for 
people like Gov. Ehrlich to take the Constitution and use it as their 
personal hand-wipe.

As the great political philosopher Ice T wrote, "Freedom of 
Speech...just watch what you say."

Well, now is exactly the time not to watch what we say. I'm angry. 
I'm angry for my friends, who trusted "Lucy" and others. I'm angry 
that my tax dollars went to paying the salaries of people who spy and 
intimidate those exercising their rights. I'm angry that Barack Obama 
just voted to increase the power of the Federal government to disrupt 
people's lives. And I'm angry enough that I'm joining a lawsuit 
initiated by the ACLU.

"Homeland Security" picked on the wrong sports writer. They also 
picked on the wrong group of activists. We will not be silenced.




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