Silencing Dissent In the Name of Security

As many of us expected, the "war on terrorism" and the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)Act, has reintroduced COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). A coalition of civil rights, peace, and environmental groups have found that the FBI's Counterintelligence unit has thousands of pages of files on US organizations, including " 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace."

COINTELPRO from Wikipedia:

"COINTELPRO began in 1956 and was designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party U.S.A. The FBI program was later enlarged to include disruption of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), Black nationalist groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam (1967), and the entire New Left, including, antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968)."

The activities secretly run out of the FBI were aimed at domestic groups that were seen as a political threat. The organization was spawned largely because J Edgar Hoover thought that the Supreme Court was too zealous in its protection of First Amendment rights.

Paul Wolf's research on COINTELPRO is a frequently referenced collection. COINTELPRO was shut down and restrictions on US government surveillance of US citizens and groups occurred as a response to the Congress' Church Committee Reports (available in full from Paul Wolf's site).

Like the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, COINTELPRO started focused. Initially COINTELPRO was aimed at monitoring "communist" groups in the U.S., but rapidly expanded to include a wide array of "dissidents." It was the covert activities of the FBI that have led to the persistent questions about whether th government assassinated President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The findings of the Church Commission and the legislation that followed, was in response to abuses by the government that effectively infringed on the Constitutional and Civil Liberties of citizens. Now we have the same process all over again - and I believe in an exaggerated form.

While COINTELPRO was started in Hoover's FBIU, it continued for over two decades. It was a covert operation. Now we have legislation that allows covert surveillance; the secret detention of people without charges or access to counsel; unprecedented access to property and information. Those who were aware of, and impacted by, the secret activities of COINTELPRO knew what the implications of the intrusive legislation after September 11, 2001 came into play. It stunk of fascism. As time has moved on and how such legislation is being used comes out, many are beyond alarmed.

The fact that our legislators - many of whom are well aware of (and were present at) the uncovering of the covert activities of the FBI - largely without hesitation signed legislation to legally allow the infringement of Constitutional rights should give all pause. While some voices were raised in protest, the overwhelming majority - of all parties - have been more than willing to sign away both Constitutional protections and Congressional responsibilities. The fact that they all claim issues of security and threats from terrorists is no excuse for the actions they have taken.

Now the battle is being waged to permanatize many of the "emergency" provisions that were placed in the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. The White House is pushing for that. The Republicans are pushing for that. Does anyone truly believe that having covert observation of domestic political and rights groups is protecting us from "terrorism?" Perhaps in the eyes of the group running the nation into the ground, the real "terrorists" are those who have a different view of "America" than they do. Maybe the real "terror" is of democracy itself.

Posted by rowan at July 18, 2005 8:28 AM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |