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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/18/politics/18protests.html?pagewanted=print & posi\

tion

 

August 18, 2004

Inquiry Into F.B.I. Questioning Is Sought

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - Several Democratic lawmakers

called on Tuesday for a Justice Department

investigation into the Federal Bureau of

Investigation's questioning of would-be demonstrators

about possible violence at the political conventions,

saying the questioning may have violated the First

Amendment.

 

In a letter to the department's inspector general

seeking an investigation, the three lawmakers said the

F.B.I. inquiries appeared to represent " systematic

political harassment and intimidation of legitimate

antiwar protesters. "

 

Signing the letter, which was prompted by an article

on Monday in The New York Times, were Representative

John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on

the House Judiciary Committee, and two other Democrats

on the panel, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert C.

Scott of Virginia.

 

Officials at the Justice Department and the Federal

Bureau of Investigation said they had not seen the

letter and could not comment on its specific points.

They defended the recent efforts by the bureau to

question potential demonstrators around the country,

saying the inquiries have been aimed solely at

detecting and preventing violence at the Republican

convention in New York and other major political

events.

 

" The F.B.I. is not monitoring groups or interviewing

individuals unless we receive intelligence that such

individuals or groups may be planning violent and

disruptive criminal activity or have knowledge of such

activity, " Cassandra M. Chandler, an assistant

director of the bureau, said in a statement released

late Monday.

 

After having received reports of possible violence,

Ms. Chandler said, " the F.B.I. conducted interviews,

within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, in order

to determine the validity of the threat information.''

 

" Violent acts,'' she added, " are not protected by the

U.S. Constitution, and the F.B.I. has a duty to

prevent such acts and to identify and bring to justice

those who commit them. "

 

In recent weeks, beginning last month before the

Democratic National Convention in Boston, F.B.I.

agents have contacted a number of people who have been

active in political demonstrations in at least six

states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts,

Missouri and New York. Many of those contacted have

been active in past demonstrations, and agents have

 

asked whether they planned acts of violence at

upcoming protests, whether they knew of anyone who did

and whether they realized it was a crime to withhold

such information.

 

Three young men in Missouri were also trailed by

federal agents and subpoenaed to appear before a grand

jury last month to tell what they knew of protest

plans, forcing them to cancel a planned trip to Boston

to participate in a demonstration there.

 

Officials of the F.B.I. would not say how many

interviews the bureau had conducted. Civil rights

advocates who have monitored the process estimated

that at least several dozen people had received visits

from agents at their homes and elsewhere in recent

weeks. They said they were continuing to collect

anecdotal information from demonstrators who had been

approached by federal agents.

 

In a newly disclosed episode in Colorado, two college

students said that an F.B.I. agent approached the

faculty adviser for their campus group late last month

and that the agent showed photographs of the students,

Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American

Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said. The students

did not want their names or college disclosed, Mr.

Silverstein said, because " they're really scared out

of their minds. "

 

The inquiries were made after a legal opinion in April

by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice

Department endorsed the constitutionality of past

efforts by F.B.I. counterterrorism agents to solicit

help from local police forces to gather intelligence

on antiwar and political demonstrations. The opinion

said any chilling of First Amendment rights was " quite

minimal " and was " substantially outweighed " by

concerns for public safety at big demonstrations.

 

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American

Civil Liberties Union, said on Tuesday that he was

troubled by the pre-emptive nature of the inquiries,

which he said had deterred some demonstrators from

protesting.

 

" This looks like it's much more about intimidation and

coercion than about criminal conduct, " Mr. Romero

said. " It's not enough for the F.B.I. to say that

there's the potential for criminal activity. That's

not the legal threshold, and if that were really the

case, they could investigate anybody. "

 

Representative Conyers and his colleagues raised

similar concerns in their letter. They asked the

inspector general to examine internal documents at the

Justice Department and F.B.I. on political protests

and to determine if the inquiries " focused on actual

threats of violence or merely involved legitimate

political and antiwar activity. "

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |

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