[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ILGreens-focus] GP RELEASE Expanded FBI power means more abuse of rights

[Jim Buell]

Here's a new Green Party statement on FBI powers and rights abuses.

jb

>Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 13:20:05 -0500
>Subject: [ILGreens-focus] GP RELEASE Expanded FBI power means more abuse 
>of rights
>Reply-To: ILGreens-focus at yahoogroups.com
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Status:  O
>
>THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
>
>MEDIA ADVISORY
>For immediate release:
>Tuesday, June 18, 2002
>
>Contacts:
>Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576,
>nallen at acadia.net
>Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
>scottmclarty at yahoo.com
>
>
>WHILE BUSH EXPANDS FBI POWERS, A FEDERAL COURT
>FINDS FBI ABUSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS
>
>Greens warn of an increase in FBI abuse of
>constitutional rights and illegal COINTELPRO
>tactics against law-abiding citizens and
>organizations
>
>
>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Following last week's legal
>victory by environmental activists against the
>FBI in federal court, the Green Party of the
>United States raised concerns about legal abuses
>as Attorney General Ashcroft announced expanded
>powers for the agency.
>
>"The behavior of FBI officers in the Earth First!
>case isn't an aberration," said David Cobb, Green
>Party candidate for Attorney General of Texas.
>"It's a pattern we've seen ever since J. Edgar
>Hoover's surveillance of prominent leaders like
>Dr. Martin Luther King, since COINTELPRO, and
>since the secret campaign to fire former
>University of California President Clark Kerr,
>recently revealed by journalist Seth Rosenfeld.
>Rather than new license to interfere with
>people's right to dissent, the FBI needs what any
>powerful law-enforcement body needs in a
>democracy -- accountability."
>
>Activists Darryl Cherney and the late Judi Bari
>triumphed in their federal civil rights lawsuit
>against several FBI agents and Oakland Police
>officers when the jury returned a favorable
>verdict and awarded the plaintiffs $4.4 million
>for various FBI and police violations of their
>constitutional rights after a car they occupied
>was bombed on May 24, 1990.
>
>"It's outrageous, in the wake of the Cherney-Bari
>verdict and the FBI's willful negligence in the
>face of last year's evidence of impending
>terrorism, as documented by agent Colleen Rowley,
>that Attorney General Ashcroft and FBI Director
>Mueller are assigning to themselves and to the
>FBI greater power to spy on legitimate groups and
>organizers," said Elizabeth Shanklin, Green
>candidate for U.S. Congress in New York's 17th
>Congressional District.
>
>Greens note that COINTELPRO targeted thousands of
>law-abiding Americans, but resulted in few
>indictments, convictions, or even accusations of
>criminal behavior.  Although the FBI's illegal
>COINTELPRO activities were banned in the 1970s,
>they continued through the 80s and 90s, with
>covert operations against religious and pacifist
>groups opposing U.S. foreign policy in Central
>America and other civil rights, environmental,
>and Native American organizations.
>
>The Bush Administration seeks to restore
>COINTELPRO-style FBI powers: monitoring
>activists' meetings, electronic surveillance of
>groups and citizens, and other tactics the agency
>deems appropriate.
>
>"The President says these powers will give agents
>means to stop terrorists," said Charles
>Pillsbury, Green candidate for Congress in
>Connecticut's 3rd District.  "But 'enemy of the
>state' can mean just about anybody -- non-violent
>environmentalists like Bari and Cherney,
>anti-globalization protesters, Greens, and anyone
>else who might question White House policy or
>object to the tactics of the FBI or Ashcroft's
>Justice Department."
>
>FBI and police officers were found to have
>violated the First and Fourth Amendments in 1990
>by arresting Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari and
>searching their homes; by creating a media smear
>campaign in which Earth First! was labeled a
>terrorist organization and the activists called
>bombers; by collecting extensive files on
>political groups in the Bay Area; by engaging in
>a secret investigation of Earth First!; by
>concocting a fake informant tip, other
>information to implicate the activists, and at
>least one fraudulent search warrant affidavit;
>and by ignoring evidence at the scene of the bomb
>blast that injured Cherney and Bari.
>
>"Bari was an effective organizer, and she was
>bombed for it," said Ben Manski, Green Party
>Co-Chair and a veteran of Earth First! campaigns
>in Wisconsin and Oregon.  "America has lost too
>many of our most courageous leaders to police
>violence and intimidation.  The cost to society
>of such violence against activists is very high,
>and it's got to stop."
>
>"In a world where George Bush says you're either
>with the terrorists or against the terrorists,
>the FBI sided with the terrorists in our case,"
>said Darryl Cherney.
>
>
>MORE INFORMATION
>
>The Green Party of the United States
>http://gpus.org
>http://www.greenpartyus.org
>National office: 1314 18th Street, NW
>Washington, DC 20036
>202-296-7755, 866-41GREEN
>
>Index of Green Party candidates in 2002
>http://www.greens.org/elections
>
>
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