e-mails received from democracy now...and free sherman austin campaign

23/11/03

DEMOCRACY NOW! SPECIAL ALERT

[The following is a message written by Democracy Now! producer Ana Nogueira who was arrested Friday evening while covering the FTAA protests in Miami. We thank the listeners and viewers who responded to our action alert last night and called officials demanding her release. She was released early Saturday morning. For full coverage on the FTAA protests tune into Democracy Now!]

Early this morning I was sitting in a jail cell in Miami, cold, hungry and trying to ignore the cockroaches crawling on the floor of the cell. My clothes had been taken away from me and thrown out because they reeked of pepper spray.

I was arrested because I had not embedded myself with the Police Department before doing my job of covering the protests for the nationally syndicated public radio and tv program Democracy Now! Instead, I was swept up late Friday afternoon with about 70 others as we tried to obey an order to disperse from an "unlawful" jail solidarity rally.

Mine is not an isolated case. Four other independent reporters were arrested with me and three of them remain in jail: Jeanette Lee and Michael Medow, both of Michigan Independent Media Center, as well as an IMC reporter who goes by the name of Winter. Todd Price, a Madison, WI, journalist who was formerly the executive director of community television station WYOU, was arrested with me but has been released.

In addition, Justin Lipson of the NYC IMC Video Team was arrested on Thursday and is being held on a $10,000 bond. Police smashed his camera and have charged him with two felonies. Miami New Times staff writer Celeste Fraser Delgado was also arrested on Thursday while trying to interview protesters. Her purse and press credentials were left at the scene of her arrest.

I am out now thanks entirely to the pressure that Democracy Now! supporters and staff put on the jail to release me. If not for all the emails and phone calls the police received demanding my immediate release, I would still be there. However, I am still facing charges and will most likely have to return to Miami to appear in court.

I thank everyone who stood up for the right of independent media today and contacted the jail urging them to release me. But there is more we need to do. Our colleagues in Miami are receiving disturbing reports of ongoing abuse of prisoners inside the jail, including severe beatings, being held in a cold room with no toilet, getting cold-showered every two hours. People of color and transgender people feel that they were specifically targeted. We must all act now to demand that the torture stop and all charges against the journalists be dropped.

Please, tell everyone you possibly can to call the numbers below to demand the release of Jeanette Lee, Michael Medow, Winter, and Justin Lipson, the dropping of all charges against journalists, and the fair treatment of all prisoners.

-- Ana Nogueira, Democracy Now! producer

= = = = = = = = = =
ACTION:

Call/Email These Authorities:

Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGK)
305-470-7636 or 305-470-7600 (Press 2 for TGK, then 7 for booking or 9 for shift commander)

The Joint Task Force on Law Enforcement
Major Role (cell): 305-216-6594

FTAA Miami Unified Command Joint Information Center
Phone: 305-579-6420

Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas
 mayor@miamidade.gov

City of Miami Mayor Manuel A. Diaz
Telephone: 305-250-5300
E-mail:  mannydiaz@ci.miami.fl.us
Janet Lopez, Director Office of Communications
Phone: 305-416-1036
Pager:305-312-2981

= = = = = = = = =
Tune in to Democracy Now! Radio & TV on Monday for a complete report:  http://www.democracynow.org

And for more information visit the FTAA IMC in Miami at  http://www.ftaaimc.org


free sherman austin campaign


F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

November 23, 2003
By ERIC LICHTBLAU





WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation
has collected extensive information on the tactics,
training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has
advised local law enforcement officials to report any
suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism
squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau
memorandum.

The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law
enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar
demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed
how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to
rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money
and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum
analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators,
as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation
to get into a secured site.

F.B.I. officials said in interviews that the
intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying
anarchists and "extremist elements" plotting violence, not
at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding
protesters.

The initiative has won the support of some local police,
who view it as a critical way to maintain order at
large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement
officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had
helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in
recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters,
remained largely free of violence and disruption.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the
monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of
the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I.
director and agents routinely spied on political protesters
like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"The F.B.I. is dangerously targeting Americans who are
engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent,"
said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American
Civil Liberties Union. "The line between terrorism and
legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a
serious concern about whether we're going back to the days
of Hoover."

Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American
University who has written about F.B.I. history, said
collecting intelligence at demonstrations is probably
legal.

But he added: "As a matter of principle, it has a very
serious chilling effect on peaceful demonstration. If you
go around telling people, `We're going to ferret out
information on demonstrations,' that deters people. People
don't want their names and pictures in F.B.I. files."

The abuses of the Hoover era, which included efforts by the
F.B.I. to harass and discredit Hoover's political enemies
under a program known as Cointelpro, led to tight
restrictions on F.B.I. investigations of political
activities.

Those restrictions were relaxed significantly last year,
when Attorney General John Ashcroft issued guidelines
giving agents authority to attend political rallies,
mosques and any event "open to the public."

Mr. Ashcroft said the Sept. 11 attacks made it essential
that the F.B.I. be allowed to investigate terrorism more
aggressively. The bureau's recent strategy in policing
demonstrations is an outgrowth of that policy, officials
said.

"We're not concerned with individuals who are exercising
their constitutional rights," one F.B.I. official said.
"But it's obvious that there are individuals capable of
violence at these events. We know that there are anarchists
that are actively involved in trying to sabotage and commit
acts of violence at these different events, and we also
know that these large gatherings would be a prime target
for terrorist groups."

Civil rights advocates, relying largely on anecdotal
evidence, have complained for months that federal officials
have surreptitiously sought to suppress the First Amendment
rights of antiwar demonstrators.

Critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, for
instance, have sued the government to learn how their names
ended up on a "no fly" list used to stop suspected
terrorists from boarding planes. Civil rights advocates
have accused federal and local authorities in Denver and
Fresno, Calif., of spying on antiwar demonstrators or
infiltrating planning meetings. And the New York Police
Department this year questioned many of those arrested at
demonstrations about their political affiliations, before
halting the practice and expunging the data in the face of
public criticism.

The F.B.I. memorandum, however, appears to offer the first
corroboration of a coordinated, nationwide effort to
collect intelligence regarding demonstrations.

The memorandum, circulated on Oct. 15 - just 10 days before
many thousands gathered in Washington and San Francisco to
protest the American occupation of Iraq - noted that the
bureau "possesses no information indicating that violent or
terrorist activities are being planned as part of these
protests" and that "most protests are peaceful events."

But it pointed to violence at protests against the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as evidence
of potential disruption. Law enforcement officials said in
interviews that they had become particularly concerned
about the ability of antigovernment groups to exploit
demonstrations and promote a violent agenda.

"What a great opportunity for an act of terrorism, when all
your resources are dedicated to some big event and you let
your guard down," a law enforcement official involved in
securing recent demonstrations said. "What would the public
say if we didn't look for criminal activity and
intelligence at these events?"

The memorandum urged local law enforcement officials "to be
alert to these possible indicators of protest activity and
report any potentially illegal acts" to counterterrorism
task forces run by the F.B.I. It warned about an array of
threats, including homemade bombs and the formation of
human chains.

The memorandum discussed demonstrators' "innovative
strategies," like the videotaping of arrests as a means of
"intimidation" against the police. And it noted that
protesters "often use the Internet to recruit, raise funds
and coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations."

"Activists may also make use of training camps to rehearse
tactics and counter-strategies for dealing with the police
and to resolve any logistical issues," the memorandum
continued. It also noted that protesters may raise money to
help pay for lawyers for those arrested.

F.B.I. counterterrorism officials developed the
intelligence cited in the memorandum through firsthand
observation, informants, public sources like the Internet
and other methods, officials said.

Officials said the F.B.I. treats demonstrations no
differently than other large-scale and vulnerable
gatherings. The aim, they said, was not to monitor
protesters but to gather intelligence.

Critics said they remained worried. "What the F.B.I.
regards as potential terrorism," Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U.
said, "strikes me as civil disobedience."

 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/national/23FBI.html?ex=1070559864&ei=1&en=e3bff1742531678a


Jennifer Martin Ruggiero
www.freesherman.tk
 http://www.carlagirl.net/freesherman.html
www.freesherman.org
 http://www.stop-fascism.org/karl_zaremba.htm (email threats)
www.killradio.org
 http://www.grito.tk/


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