FBI gathered ‘purely political intel’ on war critics

[RedEarth]

FBI gathered ‘purely political intel’ on war critics.“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…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

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/03/fbi-gathered-purely-political-intel-on-war-protesters/

.........from Washington Post.........

Police Log Confirms FBI Role In Arrests
Group Detained, Questioned During D.C. War Protest

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


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201568.html?nav=rss_nation

[Bozita]

1. NOW is it impeachment time? ... If not now, when?

[Hubert Flottz]

2. The GESTAPO did the same shit!

[indepat]

3. Almost the entire Federal establishment has been politicized, including the military,

and as such has been corrupted possibly beyond repair. Heil to der Fuhrer.

[gulfcoastliberal]

4. K&R - "just found" the logs after being sued?

I'm sure the FBI did a most thorough search. Wonder what my file says.

[Tom Joad]

5. How about Pink? Is Pink also dangerous? I have heard the term "Fashion Police"

but this is really much more literal than i would have imagined.

[Ms. Clio]

6. well, of course they did

and still are.