Committee to Stop FBI Repression

by Polly Mann, co-founder, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM)

The first time I realized that the government might so consider me was 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.  It was a lovely not-too-warm summer day, and I was sitting in the bleachers in a  amphitheater with two Roman Catholic priests I had walked into Grant Park  with.  As I recall – that was, after all, some 42 years ago – among the speakers at the rally were peace activist Dave Dellinger and authors Norman Mailer and Jean Genet.  Someone had brought a pig upon the stage, comparing it to the Chicago police.  Near the stage was a flag pole I had not noticed until my eyes were drawn to a short, skinny somewhat disheveled  man in a white undershirt who was holding a rope attached to a solid red flag he was attaching to the pole.

Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, a bevy of  Chicago police appeared, hitting people with their billy clubs as they charged through the crowd.  People were running down the bleachers, hopping from level to level as the police began to indiscriminately hit people trying to leave the area.  The priest next to me nudged me and silently pointed to a building about ten stories high.  On the roof were several soldiers with their rifles trained on the crowd. I was astonished!  What was this? Up to that time, I had never ever had a gun turned on me. As the priests began scrambling down the bouncing wooden bleachers, I followed them down and managed to arrive unscathed at my hotel.

There were many many other occurrences at that convention that were unsettling.  However, the most disturbing was the realization that my actions, driven by a desire for a peaceful world and in protest against U.S. policies that I deemed criminally wrong, made me an enemy of the nation.  It was another step in that educational journey from high school civics classes, where I somehow got the idea that the United States was the most perfect country in the history of the world, concerned not only about justice and equality for its own citizens but for all the inhabitants of the world.  Oh yes, I knew the indigenous people had been treated unfairly and the slavery. (After all, I grew in the south of magnolia trees and mint juleps and sheer unadulterated racism.). But these were only unimportant blips in the historical landscape. On that journey I learned how false much of my learning had been.  I had to discard it for newly perceived truths, which have carried me to the present. As of this moment, I see a country which, to me, resembles nothing so much as the Roman Empire in its last days.

Since the Chicago convention, that realization remains strong within me that some government officials would consider that the nonviolent actions I take in protest against what I perceive to be criminal government policy makes me an enemy of that empire.

One such occasion when I was pitted against the military was during a strike of workers at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota, as they sought better working conditions and pay.  Several people from the Twin Cities joined the Hormel workers on their picket line.  The Governor of Minnesota, DFL Rudy Perpich, called out the Minnesota National Guard, and somewhere in my files is a picture of several friends and me carrying signs of support for the strikers in front of the guard unit, composed of oh-so-very vulnerable looking young men. It was the middle of winter and the temperature was hitting the bottom of the thermometer. In heavy boots, wearing several layers of clothes, with thick woolen head scarves covering all but our eyes, we resembled nothing so much as Siberians of old crossing the steppes.

It’s interesting – this business of being an enemy of the state – to observe the variety of people who could so likewise be labeled:  for example, quite a few nuns, especially, those who have done jail time.  Some have “walked across the line” at Fort Benning, Georgia, the location of an infamous U.S. military facility where the police and military from Latin America are trained in the use of the very latest military equipment, techniques and  strategies, including the use of torture.  A protest is held there each fall, attended by thousands of people, including students from major universities and colleges, religious leaders, academics and just plain folks.  The protest is held at the site of what is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation but was previously known as the School of the Americans. Graduates were notorious for their violations of human rights, such as massacres and torture in their native lands.

At the protest demonstrators are informed they cannot walk onto the site of the Institute and those who do are arrested and released with a warning not to repeat their action.  Those who do return to repeat the trespass are charged and usually given time in a federal penitentiary, and their numbers continue to grow. There are many other religious figures who have chosen to challenge policies of the state and have spent time in jail.  Probably the most well-known are the Catholic priests known mostly as the Berrigan brothers.

In the late 60s, I challenged the government’s construction of missile silos.  It seems so patently simple that if you behave fairly and justly to others, they will respond to you in like manner.  A country is, after all, composed of people with the same instincts, weaknesses and strengths as our own.   A missile silo is hardly indicative of good feelings towards other nations. One such silo was being built in North Dakota when I was working at a state college in southern Minnesota.  I drove a group of students to the silo, and we demonstrated with hundreds of others on the muddy site.  Later we went to a small café for breakfast, and the servers refused to wait on us.

This summary has convinced me that I am an enemy of this state.  I don’t like the state in which I live.  The state I’d like to be a member of would limit all congressional seats and the presidency to one term with no pension; provide campaign funding for the presidential and legislative races; set penalties for any individual or agency interfering in the internal affairs of other countries; make certain that its policies having to do with other countries do not conflict with what is  best for that country; forbid the manufacture of nuclear weapons, drones, bacteriological or chemical weapons, forbid the use of state national guard troops overseas; institute a 100 percent tax on all annual incomes of over $500,000; initiate a health care system available all from cradle to grave; eliminate tuition in state-owned colleges and universities; pay reparations to the descendants of the indigenous people of the United States and the descendants of slaves; and reduce the military budget by 50 percent. And that’s just for starters. If the F.B.I. or other security agencies would like to contact me, I’m in the Minneapolis telephone book.

The Socialist Alliance (Australia) reaches out in comradely solidarity to the socialist and anti-war activists in the US who were subjected to early-morning raids on their homes and offices by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina on September 24.

We understand that the FBI seized computers, passports, books, documents, cell phones, photos, financial records, diaries, maps and other materials using warrants were issued under a 1996 statute which made it a crime for US citizens to provide “material assistance” to any organisation designated by the government as “terrorist”.

We condemn these raids and demand that the property seized be immediately returned and the victims of the raids be fully compensated. We also call for the revocation of the anti-democratic grand jury subpoenas against some of the raided activists.

We will also approach other organisations and activists to discuss and plan solidarity with the activists now being victimised under US “terrorism” laws.

Similar “anti-terrorism” laws have been introduced in Australia and they have been used most viciously against members of the Muslim, Sri Lankan Tamil and, most recently, Kurdish communities.

Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, former Guantanamo detainees — and in the case of Habib a victim of US torture rendition — continue to be harassed and restricted by the post-9/11 “anti-terrorism” regime in Australia.

In 2005, US anti-war activist Scott Parkin, was arrested, detained and then deported on the grounds of “national security”. He has been denied the right to legally challenge what many experts have deemed to be a clear abuse of the law and democratic rights.

In 2007, Dr Mohamed Haneef, an Indian medical practitioner employed in an Australian hospital was arrested, detained and finally deported with no justification on anti-terrorism. The Australian Federal Police leaked false information to the press in an attempt to justify their treatment of Dr Haneef but later an official inquiry found that they had no grounds to arrest and detain Dr Haneef. Haneef’s subsequent deportation was “legitimised” by the government arbitrarily cancelling his visa.Protests initiated by Socialist Alliance on this case received global media coverage and extensive coverage in India.

In February this year, Alejandro Rodriguez, a Latin American-Australian activist, was detained and interrogated by the Australia political police because of his efforts in solidarity with the progressive movements in Latin America, and Colombia in particular.

The Socialist Alliance continues to protest against and campaign for the repeal of the anti-democratic “terrorism” laws in Australia hand in hand with our campaigning against the imperialist wars of aggression, in which the Australian government is also complicit. Socialist Alliance also campaigns for a Bill of Rights, which Australia still does not have.

An injury to one is an injury to all. End terrorism by ending the imperialist wars of terror against Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations, and by ending the war on civil liberties conducted in the guise of fighting terrorism.

(Adopted by the Socialist Alliance National Executive on October 1, 2010.)

The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.

These raids, violating the civil rights of the targeted activists, were carried out by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force allegedly as part of an “ongoing investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

Groups under attack include the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee and Students for a Democratic Society.

APSC expresses our support for all these groups and individuals under attack by the US government.

We defend the right of all of us to stand in solidarity with all peoples anywhere in the world fighting to throw off the yoke of colonial violence, war and oppression imposed on them by the terrorist US government.

We affirm all of our unalienable rights to raise resources for movements for national liberation and justice.

The US, Europe and the capitalist system itself are the real terrorists!

The US built its wealth and power out of the European assault on Africa that destroyed African freedom and independence at the point of the gun.

African people were brutally kidnapped and violently forced by the millions to become the world’s most lucrative commodity as enslaved laborers for hundreds of years.

The US is the real terrorist, carrying out open policies of genocide against the Indigenous people, through torture, murder and war, stealing Indigenous land and forcing the people into concentration camps called reservations today where the life expectancy is 46 years.

The US is the real terrorist having consistently waged countless open and covert wars of occupation, plunder and extermination against the peoples of the Philippines, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Africa, Occupied Palestine and the Arab world and elsewhere in order to create the highest standard of living on the planet for North America.

The US is the real terrorist and wages a brutal counterinsurgency war against the African, Mexican and Indigenous communities inside this country today with militarized police forces shooting down young black men on a regular basis.

It is currently imprisoning 2.5 million people — mostly African and Mexicans — on designer, Jim Crow laws after imposing an illegal drug economy on those communities.

The US is the real terrorist, hunting down and rounding up Mexican people who have come across the illegal border set up by the US after stealing the land of the Mexican people.

This attack follows history of attacks on the African Liberation Movement

We recognize that this kind of US government attack on white activists is being perpetrated on a history of attacks against African Liberation activists inside this country since the Black Power Movement of the 1960s which was crushed by a terroristic program called COINTELPRO.

This US government secret program was responsible for assassinating and imprisoning movement leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton. Some activists of the 1960s are still in prison today, including Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier and so many others.

We recognize that white activists are being attacked on the heels of the frame ups by the FBI and other US government agencies of Mumia Abu Jamal, and more recently on the Liberty City 7 in Miami, the San Francisco 8 activists, the assassination earlier this year of Detroit black activist Imam Luqman and so many others.

We recognize that the white activists are attacked today on the heels of the political conviction of Uhuru Movement organizer Diop Olugbala who protested Barack Obama’s presidential campaign event in 2008 by raising the banner “What about the black community, Obama!” and who was arrested for leading protests against Philadelphia’s planned $1.1 billion war of intensified police repression against the African community there.

These attacks against the progressive organizations on September 24 are happening under the murderous neocolonial regime of US president Barack Obama who is carrying out and intensifying the terroristic imperialist agenda of his predecessors.

We have a right to stand in solidarity with African and other oppressed peoples struggling for justice and liberation

We affirm our right and responsibility to continue to stand in solidarity with African and Indigenous peoples inside this country and with peoples around the world struggling for justice and liberation from US terror!

We uphold our right to stand in material solidarity with those movements by sending resources to support their work and struggle!

The African People’s Solidarity Committee is an organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which leads the Uhuru Movement.

APSC’s work revolves around raising reparations or material support from white people for the liberation movement of African people inside this country and around the world.

For almost 40 years the APSP has led the movement for African Liberation, uniting Africans as one people around the world struggling to liberate and reunite Africa and all its resources as the birthright of African people everywhere.

Stop the US government repression against all solidarity and anti-war activists!

Fight for our right to stand in solidarity with peoples worldwide struggling for national liberation!

Victory and self-determination to African, Afghani, Palestinian, Indigenous, Colombian and oppressed and colonized people around the world!

Down with US imperialism!

Statement by Solidarity Political Committee

On Friday, September 24, the FBI used search and seizure warrants to raid the homes of several antiwar and socialist activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Subpoenas were delivered to activists in other states. The charges related to supposed “material aid to terrorist organizations.” In this case, the activists appear to have been targetted because of their active support for organizations in Colombia and Palestine that the US government has decided to name as “terrorist” organizations. The often arbitrary designation of international political organizations as “terrorists” is not new, and neither is government repression of domestic dissent.

Intense periods of repression against the left — the Palmer raids of the 1920s, the Red Scare of the 1950s, COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 70s, and against the antiwar movement today — have been the most well known instances in a fairly continuous practice of surveillance, infiltration, disruption and even violence against the movements for peace, socialism, Black self-determination, and labor rights. In each case, there were also clear efforts to isolate radical organizations active in the movements.

This record demonstrates important lessons. First, the U.S. government and its “intelligence” agencies are quick to strip individuals and organizations of their constitutional rights and ignore the basic rules of democracy in order to discredit and demoralize opposition from the left. Second, the most potent defense against this disruption has been the refusal to be intimidated, and the support to targeted individuals and groups provided by communities and movements.

Solidarity joins those who are outraged by this attempt to intimidate the antiwar and international solidarity movements. We cannot allow any activists or organizations in these movements to be isolated, and extend our full support on this matter to all of the individuals targeted. Despite political differences, we are part of one movement, and will not be divided.

In a coordinated national effort last Friday morning, the FBI raided six homes and an antiwar office in Minneapolis and Chicago, while they questioned activists in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, and California. Subpoenas were issued for a grand jury in Chicago on October 12. While full information is not yet available, it seems many if not all the targeted antiwar activists are involved in Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

These raids and this harassment of leading antiwar activists are naked acts of political repression which must be vigorously opposed. In Minneapolis, a community solidarity meeting Friday evening drew over 200 supporters together on only six hours’ notice. A call for solidarity actions across the country drew nearly 500 to a protest Monday in front of the Minneapolis FBI headquarters, and actions are reported to be happening in 19 cities Monday and today.

The raids are connected to a Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation, and the search warrants, one of which was published on tc.indymedia.org, focus on allegations of “providing, attempting, and conspiring to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations.”

The warrant also authorized FBI agents to search for information related to the “recruitment, indoctrination, and facilitation of others … to join FRSO including materials relating to the identity and location of recruiters, facilitators, and recruits, the means by which the recruits were recruited to join FRSO, and the means by which recruitment was financed and arranged.”

This is an attempt to demonize and criminalize the basic activities of a political organization. It amounts to a fundamental assault on constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of association and speech. It represents a serious attack on the antiwar movement, labor organizers, left activists, and anyone else who dares to organize against the U.S. government. Antiwar activists and civil libertarians have repeatedly warned that the so-called “war on terrorism” and the Patriot Act would be used to suppress government critics here at home.

The FBI appeared to be primarily targeting activists organizing against U.S. policies in Colombia and Palestine, where for years American tax dollars and weaponry have been used to brutally suppress popular movements for social justice. Specifically, the search warrants cited connections to FARC, a Colombian guerilla organization at war with the right-wing U.S.-backed Colombian government and the brutal paramilitary groups. The warrant also alleged links to Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who alongside FARC are on the U.S. list of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Socialist Alternative defends the right of oppressed peoples to defend themselves against imperialist and state violence. However, we have always opposed the anti-democratic politics and guerrilla tactics which emphasize armed confrontations or attacks by small radicalized minorities or which base themselves on religious sects.

At the same time, we absolutely defend the democratic right of U.S. antiwar activists to support the struggles of oppressed peoples in the neo-colonial countries free from government surveillance and repression. The real criminals are at the head of the U.S. war machine, which continues to rain down brutality on the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Palestine, and beyond.

The timing of the FBI raids and grand jury investigation was almost certainly designed to coincide with Obama’s meeting with new Colombian president Juan Manual Santos on Friday, which was publicly billed to include discussion on continued U.S. assistance in the war against FARC. The day before, the Colombian military gained U.S. headlines for their assassination of a prominent FARC leader.

The assassination and FBI raids appear intentionally coordinated to provide a useful media back-drop for the Obama-Santos meeting, underlining the cynical and politically motivated character of this state repression. Hopefully these events will dispel any lingering illusions that Obama is a friend of the antiwar movement!

On September 24th, FBI agents raided the homes of at least six organizers and activists across the country. Their crime: working in solidarity with oppressed people across the globe.

This is nothing new. The US government has a long history of disrupting and destroying organizations and activists working for justice around the world. They have trained death squads at the School of the Americas (at Ft Benning in Georgia) and have supported terrorism against labor and social justice activists in Colombia, Palestine, El Salvador and elsewhere. If the FBI were truly concerned with terrorism, they would have begun by investigating the facilities at Ft Benning or the thousands of assassins currently employed by the CIA in Afghanistan. Clearly stopping terrorism is not their goal.

The FBI also has a long history of repressing people in the US who have stood up against racism and war. In the 1960s they raided and assassinated Black Power and anti-Vietnam war activists. Over the past decade they have harassed, intimidated, and disappeared Arab and Muslim folks across the U.S.

We publicly condemn what appear to be targeted attacks against members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (http://www.frso.org/) who were acting in solidarity with groupings from Palestine and Colombia.

Opposing attacks by the U.S. government on working people across the globe is not terrorism, and should never be treated as such. This raid is not about terrorism, but about sending a message that resisting U.S. intervention and state terror abroad is a crime. These raids are political, targeting a politics that stands in opposition to the state. It makes it very clear that the state is not working in the interests of working class people of color and all oppressed people here in the United States and in countries across the world.

This is not the first time that such actions have been taken by the state. The US government has a long history of disrupting, targeting, and destroying organizations and activists working for a just and free world. We will not stand aside and look the other way as this history becomes the present.

The state is an enemy of peoples’ struggles for justice and freedom. These latest attacks on US activists demonstrate that we cannot depend on, or cooperate with, the state in our organizing. We encourage all activists and organizers to take their safety and security seriously and to in no way cooperate with law enforcement or grand juries as they go about their business of trying to destroy our movements.

As fellow activists and organizers we will stand in solidarity with the members of FRSO and any others on the left as they come under repression by the state. We stand in solidarity with working people across the world as they fight for freedom. We will not stop fighting because of state repression and we encourage others to take a public stand against such repression.

In solidarity,
Bring the Ruckus

The following statement was released September 27 by Diana Newberry, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of Minnesota, and John Hawkins, Socialist Workers candidate for governor of Illinois.

The Socialist Workers campaign calls on workers, farmers, and all defenders of democratic rights to speak out against the September 24 FBI raids carried out in Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities.

The break-in at the office of the Anti-War Committee and homes of activists in Minneapolis and Chicago should be condemned by all supporters of political rights. This assault on the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association is a threat to labor unions, Black and Latino rights organizations, and to all working people.

For more than a decade the U.S. government has been laying the basis for expanding an offensive against the democratic rights of working people to speak out and to organize, anticipating that workers will begin to rebel against the conditions of the capitalist economic crisis. This crisis has now arrived.

Working people in the United States face a sharp assault by the bosses against our wages and working conditions. We are living through an escalation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The government is expanding its use of wiretaps, informants, and frame-ups.

The FBI has a long history of intimidating and disrupting the struggles of working people attempting to defend themselves against the ruling rich. The FBI has carried out numerous violent acts against the civil rights movement, and has consistently targeted the labor movement; protests against U.S. wars abroad; the struggles of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and other oppressed nationalities; and the fight for women’s rights.

The recent raids also come as the FBI is conducting a major national probe against the Somali community. For the past two years, the cop agency has raided their homes and businesses, and arrested and intimidated many in the Somali community. A number have been indicted in grand jury investigations. The FBI raids are being used to legitimize the expansion of spying and disruption against fighters for immigrant rights, the labor movement, the Black struggle, socialist organizations, and other working-class movements.

We must oppose the campaign by the U.S. government—Democrats and Republicans alike—to curb workers’ constitutionally guaranteed rights for political organization and activity, and to legitimize use of the U.S. troops abroad.

The first two years of the Barack Obama administration have been marked by stepped-up bipartisan efforts to expand the powers of the FBI and other intelligence agencies in order to conduct spying and disruption operations, carry out arbitrary search and seizures, and round up immigrants. A new expanded Patriot Act signed into law by President Obama earlier this year gives the government greater powers to convict anyone who “harbors terrorists” or raises funds for organizations the U.S. government considers terrorist.

We urge workers, farmers and all defenders of democratic rights to join us in demanding:
Stop the FBI raids!
Return all materials confiscated by the FBI!
Halt the federal grand jury investigations!
Repeal the Patriot Act; End all government wiretapping, spying, and disruption campaigns!

Statement from Socialist Action

In the early hours of Friday, Sept. 24, FBI agents raided the homes of antiwar activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, North Carolina, and Michigan. The targeted activists participate in coalitions against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also work in solidarity with the people of Colombia and Palestine. At least some of them have ties to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, publishers of Fightback newspaper.

The federal agents searched the homes of these activists, and removed computers, cell phones, and other material for examination. According to news accounts, the FBI was looking for “evidence” of ties to “foreign terrorist organizations”—specifically, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The activists were served with subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury.

This is a blatant attempt to divide and intimidate the antiwar movement on the eve of the Oct. 2 mobilization in Washington, D.C., which is supported by the NAACP, AFL-CIO, and numerous antiwar, immigration rights, and other social justice groups. The government obviously hopes that its allegations of illegal activity will chill free speech and scare people away from legal political activity.

One of the targeted activists, Tom Burke, said: “The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes. They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America.”

So far, the charges against the activists appear to be vague and unfocused. But we must not underestimate the potential consequences for the victims of these frame-up attacks. The current FBI operation has been undertaken after numerous round-ups of people in the Muslim, Arab, and immigrant communities—leading to kangaroo trials on spurious charges of “terrorism” and long prison terms for those who were convicted.

Nor is this the first time that the antiwar movement has been targeted, and its First Amendment rights trampled upon. It was revealed in the September 2010 Inspector General’s “Review of the FBI’s Investigation of Certain Domestic Advocacy Groups” that federal agents from 2001-2006, under the guise of stopping terrorism, had spied on antiwar activists and events sponsored by the Catholic Worker, Greenpeace, Quakers, and others. In regard to the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, the report stated, the FBI even fabricated a terrorism threat when it knew that none existed, leading to “inaccurate and misleading” testimony being given to Congress.

Even more recently, according to the media, the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland Security has spied on and attempted to disrupt the activities of antiwar and environmental activists in that state.

All people who support civil liberties and the rights of free speech and political assembly must speak with one voice. We must say no to political intimation by police and federal agents. We must say no to McCarthy-style witch hunting of antiwar and socialist activists.
We call on the entire antiwar and social justice movement to unite in defense of these activists. It’s at the core of our values as a movement to say: “An attack on one is an attack on all.”

By Sara Flounders

Anti-war, anti-racist and left political activists in the United States have responded with unprecedented energy and outrage against nationally coordinated FBI raids on the homes of well-respected political organizers. Within 72 hours of the Sept. 24 raids, protest demonstrations were held or scheduled in 32 cities across the country.

Activists have established a Committee to Stop FBI Repression to coordinate the opposition to the FBI attacks. Dozens of organizations, local, regional and national, have condemned the FBI raids, including the San Francisco Labor Council.

This latest instance of state repression began early Sept. 24 as FBI agents armed with grand jury subpoenas raided the homes of several anti-war and social justice activists in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois.

Organizers believe the Oct. 5, 7, 12 and 19 grand jury subpoena dates will become dates to mobilize the entire progressive political movement. They expect the demand to stop the subpoenas and “No to the grand jury investigation” to become slogans of a national movement that can stop this dangerous precedent.

That same day FBI agents “visited” activists’ homes in California, Milwaukee, Michigan and North Carolina demanding immediate cooperation. When activists refused to speak with them, the FBI threatened to talk to employers and landlords, and also subpoena the activists.

The targets of this “raid against terrorism” included leaders of the Minneapolis Antiwar Committee, whose office was raided; the Palestine Solidarity Group; the Colombia Action Network; the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera (a Colombian political prisoner held in the U.S.); Students for a Democratic Society; and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Though their homes and lives had just been turned upside down, all those targeted had a calm and determined response. They refused to speak to the FBI. Faced with spurious charges of providing material aid to “terrorists,” they reaffirmed their right to organize opposition to U.S. wars and to build solidarity with the struggles of people around the world who are resisting occupation and dictatorship.

These organizers’ reactions helped to mobilize a strong response to these police tactics intended to intimidate and demoralize the movement. Even as the FBI was seizing computers, files, cameras, passports, e-mails and mailing lists, neighbors came out in support while others came to film. Scanned copies of the search warrants and subpoenas were soon available on IndyMedia sites and videos of the raid were posted on YouTube.

Hundreds came to an emergency rally in Minneapolis that same evening, and supporters held press conferences the following day in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago.

Who should resist this attack?

The rapid and broad response from the progressive movement shows that many are aware of the need to join the resistance. Even a quick scan of the sweeping nature of the search warrant and the subpoena clearly shows that any opponent of U.S. wars should join the protests. This includes those organizations and individuals who participated in or supported a convoy or flotilla or a solidarity delegation to besieged and blocked Gaza, or a delegation to blockaded Cuba, or those who attended a conference or meeting with international representatives of peoples’ movements throughout Latin America.

The FBI confiscated all paper circulation lists, e-mail lists, cell phones and electronic equipment. The broadest movement should resist this attempt to shut down the ability and means to communicate.

The subpoenas to appear before a grand jury demand all items, all correspondence, all documents and all phone records related to so-called “foreign terrorist organizations, including FARC of Colombia, PFLP of Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, all pictures, videos and travel documents to Colombia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine.”

A united fightback can stop this effort to shut down the movement that is sweeping U.S. college campuses today to boycott, divest and sanction Israel and build solidarity with Palestine, and the movement in solidarity with the political change sweeping Latin America.

It is encouraging that all the major anti-war coalitions have joined to oppose these FBI attacks. Now, as opposition grows to the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — wars that have provoked dissention within the ruling political and military bodies because U.S. imperialism is facing a debacle — the government moves to wall off people in the U.S. from any knowledge, information or exchanges with people of the world. The movement is saying it won’t let this happen.

Past raids and repression

The U.S. ruling class and state have used raids, entrapments, roundups and grand jury subpoenas throughout U.S. history to undermine many social movements. They were combined with anti-Communist ideology during the 1920s Palmer Raids and the 1950s McCarthyite period. The FBI also targeted the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The COINTELPRO effort — which also tried to disrupt the movements in solidarity with Central American peoples in the 1980s — carried out a special terror campaign against the Black Panther Party and other Black liberation organizations and other groups in the Latino/a and Native struggles in the late 1960s and 1970s. Since 2001 the now monstrous “Homeland Security” apparatus has been used to criminalize, entrap and demonize Muslim people.

The U.S. State Department has spuriously labeled as “terrorist” the popularly elected and legitimate governments in Gaza and Nepal and the mass-based Hezbollah organization in Lebanon. Opposition to the longest war in U.S. history is being labeled sympathy with the Taliban and al-Qaida, as is any contact with the government of Iran or the people’s movement in Pakistan. Contact with Cuba and Iran, Sudan and North Korea is also sanctioned and blockaded.

All the more reason that all those who want these movements to continue should unite to stop the latest sign of growing government repression. On the very day of the raids, the National Lawyers Guild issued at their national convention in New Orleans an important report entitled, “The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S.”

The NLG report dealt with the very issues of the raids: guilt by association, stigmatizing activists as “terrorists,” pre-event arrests and raids of independent media and activists, and the use of grand juries for information gathering.

The raids came only four days after a scathing report by the Department of Justice inspector general that soundly criticized the FBI for targeting domestic groups such as Greenpeace and the Thomas Merton Center from 2002 to 2006.

The majority of those who have been targeted by these new FBI raids had participated in anti-war protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., which resulted in hundreds of beatings and arrests. After a long legal struggle, the government had to drop almost all the fabricated charges.

Two activists subpoenaed from Minneapolis, Jess Sundin and Mick Kelly, were key organizers of the Sept. 2008 RNC protests. Both recently spoke at a news conference to announce plans for organized mass protests if Minneapolis is elected to hold the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

“This is really about trying to intimidate the anti-war movement, and we won’t be silenced,” said anti-war activist Stephanie Weiner, whose home was raided.

Steff Yorek, another activist targeted, called the searches “an outrageous fishing expedition. … Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse.”

The FBI also subpoenaed Tom Burke, who is involved in humanitarian solidarity work with labor and popular movements in Colombia. Burke explained: “The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes.” (quotes from fightbacknews.org)

This sweeping attack on all constitutional rights is taking place under the Barack Obama administration, which came into office with promises to end the wars and open a new era of dialogue and openness.

On taking office President Obama made few changes in the Bush Justice Department, replacing only a few of the top personnel and keeping much of the racist, right-wing apparatus intact. A Bush appointee, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, heads the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where the grand jury that has issued the subpoenas is seated.

Under the cover provided by Attorney General Eric Holder, this repressive agency has had an ever-freer hand, for example, to go after Black elected officials with all manner of spurious charges of corruption. Preventive detention and outrageous entrapment and frame-ups of Muslims have accelerated along with the continued campaign to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Regardless of the political changes on top, the capitalist state exists to repress the political movements that fight in the interests of the working class. Every struggle for political rights comes up against this repressive apparatus.

To quote the unanimously passed San Francisco Labor Council resolution: “The nationally coordinated dawn raids and fishing expedition mark a new and dangerous chapter in the protracted assault on the First Amendment rights of every union fighter, solidarity activist or anti-war campaigner.”

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression has three demands that will help to focus the national effort:

1. Stop the repression against trade union, anti-war and international solidarity activists.

2. Immediately return all confiscated materials: computers, cell phones, papers, documents, personal belongings, etc.

3. End the grand jury proceedings and FBI raids against trade union, anti-war and international solidarity activists.

The committee’s advice to activists is: Keep on alert! Know your rights! Don’t talk to the FBI!

Flounders is co-director of the International Action Center, which has organized protests and a petition campaign — www.iacenter.org/stopfbirepression — to defend the activists.