ACLU finds spying of anti-war, activist groups
The American Civil Liberties Union released a compilation of covert government surveillance of war protesters and other political activists in California...
The ACLU cataloged several incidents of surveillance in recent years.
-Two Oakland police officers posed as demonstrators ahead of a 2003 march and got themselves elected as organizers for the march. The march was meant to protest a clash the previous month in which Oakland police fired non-lethal projectiles at anti-war demonstrators. The infiltrators helped plan the march route, according to the ACLU.
-The Fresno County Sheriff’s Department sent a deputy into an anti-war group, Peace Fresno, posing as a fellow activist. “Aaron Stokes,” who was actually Deputy Aaron Kilner, had attended rallies with the group and taken minutes at meetings in 2003. Attorney General Bill Lockyer opened an investigation in 2004, and later said he had “serious concerns” about the sheriff’s methods, but he has taken no action against the department nor issued a report about the inquiry, which remains open.
-In 2004, union members at a demonstration identified two Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department Homeland Security Unit members in attendance. When California Labor Federation leader Art Pulaski confronted the men, they claimed they were there to support the rally.
I will put this simply: We must not throw our Constitution overboard in an attempt to deal with terrorism. Public officials have repeatedly said that we need to "go on with life as normal or the terrorists have won." Well, life as normal used to include, in general, a respect for our constitutional rights. If our constitutional protections are not a part of "normal life" in the US, then the terrorists have indeed won.
GP
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