Spying on Peaceniks

We now have documented proof that the United States government is restarting COINTELPRO (hat tip a gnostic).

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania today released new evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting investigations into a political organizations based solely on its anti-war views.

Two documents released today reveal that the FBI investigated gatherings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice just because the organization opposed the war in Iraq.  Although previously disclosed documents show that the FBI is retaining files on anti-war groups, these documents are the first to show conclusively that the rationale for FBI targeting is the group's opposition to the war.

"It makes no sense that the FBI would be spying on peace activists handing out flyers," said Jim Kleissler, Executive Director of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice.  "Our members were simply offering leaflets to passersby, legally and peacefully, and now they're being investigated by a counter-terrorism unit.  Something is seriously wrong in how our government determines who and what constitutes terrorism when peace activists find themselves targeted."

This is exactly the slippery slope those of us opposed to the NSA spying program have characterized. Without judicial or congressional oversight, we leave the determination of who is a terrorist and who is a national security threat to a select few people, a group who has on numerous ocassions called anyone who disagree's with the President's policies a traitor. That's not much of a step in their eyes, from traitor to terrorist, from providing aid and comfort to the enemy to being the enemy. And so a program that is designed to surveil terrorists ends up being used to surveil political enemies. And if the President has his way, there would be nothing that anyone could do about that.

This is highly un-American, and it's why censure is the least we can do to fight back. I called Sen. Boxer yesterday, and she was merely "taking comments." I will continue to give my comments to her and all my elected representatives. Especially in light of this revelation, we cannot have a President-King going around breaking laws whenever he wants.

UPDATE: Digby on fighting the fights wirth fighting:

It is past time for elected Democrats to begin laying out the case that the leader of the Republican party, the man to whom the congress has blindly followed at every turn for the past five years, is dishonorable. They must begin to create a low hum that reverberates throughout the body politic that says "the Republican party is unethical, untrustworthy, inept and dishonorable." Make people hear it in their heads before they go to sleep each night.

Russ Feingold has just taken the first step to doing this. His censure motion will not pass, of course. But he's started the hum. The press is listening. They are shocked, it can't be, how can he say that? But Feingold is saying outloud, for the whole nation to hear, that the president defied the law and broke his oath to defend the constition.

As the magnificent helmeted Cokie Roberts once said, "it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's out there." In this case, it's true. And now it's out there. Take a moment and hum this tune in your senators ears today. It's time they get used to hearing it.