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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Exposed: FBI Surveillance of
School of the Americas Watch</b><br>
</span> <i>by Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil
Justice Fund</i><br>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>FBI used counter-terrorism
authority to track pacifist human rights group for 10 years</b></span><br>
<br>
For a decade, the FBI, flagrantly abused its counter-terrorism
authority to conduct a widespread surveillance and monitoring
operation of School of Americas Watch (SOAW), a nonviolent
activist organization founded by pacifists with the aim of closing
the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (now renamed) and ending
the U.S. role in the militarization of Latin America.<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZW2aAV9EhSQe3vEtvvE%2Fze%2FQ0EhaEj3m">Hundreds
of pages of documents</a> obtained by the Partnership for Civil
Justice Fund, on behalf of SOAW, once again reveal the FBI’s
functioning as a political surveillance and intelligence operation
and its use of its domestic terrorism authority against peaceful
protest in the United States.<br>
<br>
SOAW organizes annual protests in Fort Benning, Ga., the site
where the U.S. Army has trained many of the military leaders and
dictators in Latin America who were responsible for massacres of
opposition forces and the creation of torture centers, among other
crimes against humanity. The training at the SOA is ongoing and
the graduates of the institute continue to engage in extrajudicial
executions and the repression of social movements in countries
like Chile, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico. <br>
<br>
SOAW’s mission and proven track record are peaceful. Yet the FBI
deployed its “domestic terrorism” resources, reported to the
“Counterterrorism Unit” and reached out to the Miami Domestic
Intelligence Terrorism Squad. It used confidential informants
inside the movement to collect information. The FBI’s headquarters
and counter-terrorism units were requested to provide the FBI’s
Field Office in Atlanta with “all intelligence relevant to the
SOA, so that this information can be provided to local/military
law enforcement agencies.”<br>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br>
Tracked despite 'peaceful intentions'</span></b><br>
<br>
A review of 10 years of redacted documents obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act by the Partnership for Civil Justice
Fund on behalf of the SOAW show that, year after year, the FBI
acknowledged that the organizers and the activities of the group
were peaceful. And year after year, the FBI continued to keep its
case open with claims that it was possible that there could be
“more aggressive protest participants” or “factions of a radical
cell” or other such pretextual alarmist warnings to justify its
spying on protected First Amendment political activity.<br>
<i><br>
The documents have been made public and are searchable at </i><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xtjcTIJT9b8VJbWKQx9M2%2B%2FQ0EhaEj3m"><i><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.justiceonline.org/soaw">http://www.justiceonline.org/soaw</a></i></a><i>
.</i><br>
<br>
In 2005, FBI reports admitted “the peaceful intentions” of the SOA
Watch leaders but justified its work on the basis that “a militant
group would infiltrate the protestors and use of the cover of the
crowd to create problems.” Yet they admitted that “At this time,
there are no specific or known threats to this event.”<br>
<br>
The vague, unspecified threat of future violence functioned as the
annual excuse for the surveillance of peaceful dissent. Under this
logic of counter-terrorism law enforcement activity, all
constitutionally protected peaceful protest carries the seed of
potential terrorism — we are all potential terrorists.<br>
This pattern of significant surveillance, allusions to violence
and then reports of peaceful activity after the fact continued for
years.<br>
<br>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Mass arrests and Confidential
Informants</span></b><br>
<br>
The protests for many years involved thousands of people, and
included arrests for peaceful, organized, nonviolent civil
disobedience. Law enforcement described the mass arrests of 1,700
protesters in November 2000 as arrests for “acting in an overt
manner.” This included “wearing masks, coffins, puppets or pouring
the red substance upon themselves."<br>
<br>
In 2006, Confidential Informants provided information about
planning events in Massachusetts, and the numbers of buses coming
from around the country. The FBI obtained shelters and command
centers "at no cost" from real estate companies to work on
logistics for the protest, which was again labeled an FBI “Special
Events Readiness Level.” Later they reviewed the 2006 protest as
“uneventful” and came to a similar assessment for 2007.<br>
<br>
In 2008, undercover FBI agents traveled with protesters to the
event to follow the activities of several “subjects of
FBI-Minneapolis” although they had “never expressed or exhibited a
propensity for violence.”<br>
<br>
The FBI used Confidential Informants who dutifully reported on the
planned schedule of activities for the protests, the names of
organizers, including a person “who is or was a Maryknoll nun,”
and the name of a legal advisor to SOAW. The legal advisor, whose
name was redacted but is otherwise identified with Loyola
University, is evidently renowned human rights lawyer Bill
Quigley.<br>
<br>
By 2009, after 10 years of surveillance, the FBI admitted “there
has never been any significant incidents of violence or widespread
property damage.” Describing the demonstrations more as a “street
festival,” they finally closed the case.<br>
<br>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">FBI's operating practice of
political surveillance</span></b><br>
<br>
In 2012, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund uncovered hundreds
of documents exposing that <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NrUYx2vPupwtucYdHtDj5e%2FQ0EhaEj3m">the
FBI was treating the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and
terrorist threat</a> even though the agency similarly
acknowledged in its own reports that organizers explicitly called
for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence.”<br>
<br>
The PCJF obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI
offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting
surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a
month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti
Park and other Occupy actions around the country. <br>
<br>
Other documents obtained and released by the PCJF demonstrated
that the Department of Homeland Security and the <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1x13cRl2G%2F3DNd0HbY5vS%2B%2FQ0EhaEj3m">sprawling
network of Fusion Centers in the United States similarly
expended huge resources</a> monitoring, tracking and reporting
on peaceful, lawful and constitutionally protected protest
activities.<br>
<br>
The FBI has recently been further exposed as monitoring and
tracking, including through surveillance aircraft, the activities
of the Black Lives Matter movement in cities around the United
States.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Unlearned lessons and
unfinished work of the Church Committee</b></span><br>
<br>
In the mid-1970s, the Church Committee of the United States Senate
conducted an investigation into U.S. intelligence agencies’ abuse
of law enforcement authority to target First Amendment activity
and peaceful organizing through investigations, surveillance and
disruption. As a result of the disclosures of the Committee, the
FBI was required to enact restrictions on the use of its
intelligence and law enforcement powers, prohibiting
investigations into non-violent free speech activities. While
Congress could have enacted binding legislation, the U.S. Attorney
General was allowed to promulgate guidelines instead — guidelines
that have been watered down by successive administrations over the
past 40 years.<br>
<br>
These repeated revelations of the FBI unconscionably abusing its
counter-terrorism authority against peaceful political movements —
from SOAW to Occupy to Black Lives Matter — make it clear that the
FBI cannot be its own watchdog or self-regulate. It makes it clear
that surveillance, monitoring, tracking and infiltration of
peaceful social justice movements is a programmatic,
institutionalized and ongoing effort of the FBI. It is time for
there to be legislatively enacted prohibitions on the FBI’s use of
domestic terrorism authority against peaceful protest and First
Amendment-protected free speech activities in the United States.<br>
<br>
It is a fundamental right of the people to organize, to assemble,
to speak and to peacefully demand change in U.S. policies and
practices — without monitoring and investigation from the
government’s domestic terrorism agencies. Democracy and the
Constitution require no less.</p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Converge on Fort Benning from
November 20-22</span></b></p>
<p>SOAW activists from across the Americas are not intimidated, and
will once again <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=im4hy%2BbVr%2BDXNxE%2F5AST5u%2FQ0EhaEj3m">take
a stand at Fort Benning, Georgia, from November 20-22</a> to
speak out against repressive U.S. policies, and to engage in
nonviolent direct action. The SOAW Legal Collective will provide
legal support and monitor police activities, to ensure that the
family friendly, permitted demonstrations will be safe for
everyone.</p>
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