Right to Know - Freedom to ActDefending Dissent Foundation - Spring 2013

What the AETA is and How it Might Make You a Terrorist Page 5

REVEALED: FBI Manufactures Another Crime Page 2

U.N. High Commissioner Takes Our AdviceRecent UN report on right to protest cites Defending Dissent Foundation.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently released a report on ensuring the right to peacefully protest.Entitled “Effective measures and best practices to ensure the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests”, the report cites recommendations from the world’s leading free speech organizations, including Defending Dissent Foundation.The report comes to a conclusion that DDF could have written as part of our mission statement:Peaceful protests are a fundamental aspect of a vibrant democracy. States should recognize the positive role of peaceful protests as a means to strengthen human rights and democracy.The report specifically cited DDF’s recommendation that permits and/or advance notice should not be required for assemblies of less than 50 people, or for sidewalk marches, or for immediate or spontaneous demonstrations in response to public events. Also cited were our recommendations regarding police conduct during protests. The full report is available on our website. Defending Dissent Foundation is cited in points 46 and 53. The report omitted several key recommendations by DDF regarding police activity prior to a protest. Read DDF’s complete list of recommendations on our website.

DDF takes on NDAA in MarylandDefending Dissent Foundation testifies in support of Maryland Anti-NDAA bill.DDF Executive Director Sue Udry testified in support of the Maryland Liberty Preservation Act of 2013 (HB 558) at a hearing on the bill in the state Capitol. The bill would have prohibited Maryland officials from enforcing, or helping federal officials enforce, the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act. Unlike bills under consideration in several other state legislatures, this bill extended protection to all persons in the state, not just American citizens or legal permanent residents.In her comments, Udry observed:Activists across the political spectrum are concerned about provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that strip US citizens of their right to a jury trial when an unnamed bureaucrat or politician claims that they “support forces” which are “associated” with Al Qaeda. None of those essential terms, support, forces or associated, are defined. The law does not require even an allegation that a detained person caused any harm or threat of harm to the United States or to any U.S. interest. Mere allegation of membership in or support of, an alleged terrorist group could be the basis for indefinite detention. We are concerned because the law is so broad and so vague and allows the government to decide behind closed doors who can be locked up, that the potential for abuse is great.DDF worked with the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition to organize support for the bill, reaching out to peace, environmental and other local Maryland organizations. Although broad support was voiced for the bill, it died in committee.More about this legislation and anti-NDAA legislation in other states is available on at defendingdissent.org.

EXCLUSIVE: FBI MANUFACTURES ANOTHER CRIME

Fadi Saba takles FBI’s manufactured terror plots in latest piece.

DDF board member Fadi Saba knew something was fishy when he heard about the arrest of a San Jose man named Matthew Llaneza. Once again the FBI was claiming it had foiled a terrorist bomb plot, but it quickly became apparent that the FBI had played an active role in creating the plot using a young man with a troubled past and history of mental instability.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a track record of attacking the undesirables of the time.

In the early part of the 20th century, immigrants from Italy were the focus; in the 1940s, it was Japanese-Americans; in the 1950s, it was Americans who questioned U.S. foreign policy; in the 1960s, civil rights activists. Today, it’s Muslims and people of color. It’s the Arab. It’s the South Asian. And often, the FBI uses entrapment to create a terror case out of thin air and then claim to have foiled it.”

The FBI’s post 9/11 mission to prevent terrorism rather than to investigate criminal activity has led to an upsurge in these cases, which some call ‘pre-emptive prosecution’ or ‘manufactured crimes’. As Saba concludes in his article,

“The FBI needs to foil real plots, not ones it fabricates. There are only losers in these entrapment cases: us, and our cherished Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution, which all FBI agents take an oath to uphold.”

Read Saba’s recent article on the case on the San Jose Mercury News website.

CyberNewsCISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act passed the House of Representatives on April 18 with a vote of 288-127. The bill allows corporations to share our private data with other corporations and the U.S. government (including the NSA – the National Security Agency). DDF was part of a broad coalition that fought against the bill, but we were no match for the $605 million lobby campaign waged for the past 2 years by corporations and the Chamber of Commerce. Despite that discouraging news, we are hopeful. The bill faces an uncertain future because Senate leadership has indicated they aren’t interested in bringing the bill up for a vote, and President Obama has issued a veto threat. So, we’re counting this one a victory, at least for now.In the meantime, another important internet-related bill, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2013, is under consideration in the Senate. This bill will update the original ECPA, which was enacted in 1986. The current bill, which would require a warrant for law enforcement to access our private email was passed out of the Senate Judiciary committee in the end of April.

We are closely monitoring the situation and urge you to stay tuned to our website for updates.

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STAFFSue Udry, Executive Director

Andrew Bashi, Program AssociateRachel Bernhardt, Assistant

OFFICERS:Woody Kaplan,

President Chip Berlet,

Vice PresidentFadi Saba, Vice

PresidentHussein Ibish,

Secretary Treasurer

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Timuel BlackDon GoldhamerEmily Jane GoodmanArun GuptaConnie HogarthSarah HogarthKate Martin

Victor NavaskyFrank RosenChris Townsend

Reverend C. T. Vivian

DEFENDING DISSENT FOUNDATION

Update on DronesWe reported in February that nine states were considering legislation to regulate drones. DDF intern Fidelis Okonkwo has done a survey to update that number and has found drone legislation in 35 states, potentially creating a patchwork of rules across the country ranging from prohibitions of weapons or cameras on drones to providing protection from surveillance for everyone, or just U.S. citizens. Find out what’s happening in your state on our website.

Meanwhile, Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) has introduced an updated version of the bill he introduced last year, H.R.1262 The Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act (DAPTA). The bill has a strict application process, requiring a data collection statement (who will fly the drone, what data will be collected, how it will be used) and that information will be available on a public website. Law enforcement will have to include a data minimization statement, and will be required to get a warrant before using a drone for surveillance. The bill currently has no co-sponsors.

In the absence of any guidance from Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration is tasked with developing privacy policies. DDF’s Sue Udry attended a listening session sponsored by the FAA on April 3 to voice our concerns and make recommendations for the FAA privacy policies. Our recommendations included the need for transparency and strict requirements for licenses including restrictions on data collection and retention, a requirement that police obtain a warrant for any surveillance (in public or on private land) and other restrictions on the use of drones by law enforcement.

Hunt for a new FBI director begins after 12 years under Mueller.After twelve years as FBI Director, Robert Mueller will be forced to step down in September. He’s the longest running FBI Director since J. Edgar, because Congress re-wrote the law to allow the President to extend Mueller’s term for two years beyond the legally proscribed 10 year term-limit.

Under Director Mueller’s leadership, the FBI has repeatedly overstepped its authority to the detriment of our civil liberties. The Inspector General has found that the FBI has violated their own guidelines, mismanaged the terrorist watch list, significantly misused its authorities under the USA PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and improperly undertook surveillance of peaceful groups with no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The FBI’s activities in the Muslim community have been highly unethical, from using its Community Outreach program to gather intelligence at Mosques and Muslim community centers, subjecting agents to wildly inaccurate and Islamaphobic training, to using paid informants to infiltrate the Muslim community to spy and to lure young men into fake terror plots,.

And that’s just some of the abuses we know about. The FBI is operating under the same loose guidelines that led to egregious programs like COINTELPRO during the Hoover years, and the agency now has much more powerful surveillance and data collection and management tools at its disposal, so it can only be a matter of time before we learn of more problems.

The Obama administration has started floating names of potential nominees, and we can expect nomination hearings and a vote before Congress breaks for the summer (in late July or August). Although we would love a director with a little more respect for the right to dissent, we can’t imagine that the President will nominate anyone who we could support. But, we do regard the nominations process as an opportunity to demand more vigorous congressional oversight of the FBI and tightening of the FBI’s guidelines

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POST MUELLER

of newly redesigned H-bombs in direct violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the president’s 2009 promise of a national commitment to seek “a world without nuclear weapons.”

For them, the secrecy, the deception, the illegality, and the immorality of these nuclear war preparations were too blatant to ignore. So they engaged in civil disobedience.

Their violation was trespass and minor vandalism at most, but they were charged with felony destruction of property charges that carry a maximum of $500,000 in fines and 15 years in prison. As is common

Hammering Swords into Plowshares

Last July three members of Transform Now Ploughshares, including an 82 year old Catholic nun, entered the nuclear weapons factory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They cut several fences, painted some slogans on walls, symbolically hammered the building creating a small hole, and waited for security to arrest them. They called themselves Plowshares Now.

Their intent was to draw international attention to the United States’ secret, ongoing development and production

in our criminal justice system, the prosecutor tried to get them to plead guilty by threatening to add even more serious charges of sabotage during wartime. They refused, and the prosecutor replaced the trespass charge with a sabotage charge carrying 25 years. In addition, the judge has effectively placed a gag order on the activists, prohibiting them from talking about why they took this action in court.

These are outrageously excessive penalties for a peaceful protest with minor vandalism, which unfortunately fit a pattern of abusive prosecution of whistleblowers and civil resisters in Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.

Groups Support Bill to Make Agency Reports AccessibleDDF has joined with OpenTheGovernment.org in endorsing HR 1380, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, a bill that would make the thousands of reports federal agencies are required to submit to Congress each year easily available to the public. Currently these reports, which include valuable information about what agencies are doing and how they are spending taxpayer dollars, end up collecting dust on a staffer’s shelf or are posted in an obscure section of the agency’s website. HR 1380 requires that any report issued to Congress or its committees and releasable under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) be posted on a website managed by the US Government Printing Office.(GPO).

Protest Lawsuit UpdatesNew York On November 15, 2011, when the NYPD moved in to clear out Zuccotti Park and shut down Occupy Wall Street, they trashed personal and communal belongings as well as the First Amendment. The city has just settled a lawsuit with Occupy over the destruction of the People’s Library as well as other property, for over $365,000. As important as the money was the city’s admission that it should have been more respectful of the rights of the property owners. Pittsburgh In 2009, the city of Pittsburgh hosted a summit of the G-20. DDF executive director Sue Udry was there to monitor police conduct, along with dozens of other NLG legal observers and monitors from the ACLU. We were no match for the huge numbers of armored police, who came from near and far to intimidate protesters. One of the most egregious police actions involved surrounding protesters, monitors and standers-by in a small park, then moving in to arrest whomever they could grab. In February, the city agreed to pay $400,000 to settle the claims of 13 people who were swept up in the mass arrest. The city had previously paid $88,000 to settle with 11 other plaintiffs. Boston In February, all charges were dropped against Occupy activists who were still awaiting trial as a result of mass police arrests in October and December 2011. Although the action amounts to an implicit acknowledgement of the unconstitutionality of the arrests and criminal charges brought against almost 200 Occupy activists, several of the defendants and their lawyers had been eager to have their day in court. They had spent months working to prepare a case that would potentially embarrass the City and set valuable precedent that would reaffirm the constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. In a press release, the NLG said, “in making this decision, Suffolk County prosecutors have not only prevented the defendants from having their day in court, they have employed yet another way to trample upon those who voice dissent and discouraged them from challenging injustice and inequality in this country.”

Not a Vegan? Why You Should Still Care About AETAThe Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law designed to protect some businesses from animal rights advocacy, has been on the books since 2006. The law is so broadly written that it could be used against a wide array of protesters and advocates, not just the much-maligned animal rights movement. In spite of that, it hasn’t generated a groundswell of opposition, and has remained on the books even though it is clearly unconstitutional. But DDF aims to change that with a new campaign to overturn the AETA. Our fledgling campaign has taken on a new urgency since a U.S. district court recently dismissed a lawsuit against the AETA filed by Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of five animal rights activists. CCR and the activists argued that the federal law, which had not been used against them nevertheless made them afraid to engage in animal right advocacy for fear of being charged with terrorism.On the one hand, the ruling is good. The Justice Department had to argue for a narrow interpretation of the law in order to deny the plaintiffs standing, saying that none of the activities the activists wanted to engage in would be against the law. The government specifically mentioned “documenting factory conditions with permission, organizing lawful public protests and letter writing campaigns, speaking at public events, and disseminating literature or other educational materials.” This isn’t binding law, but it will be helpful in the future as animal rights activists find themselves in court.But a quick look at that list of sanctioned activities leaves out a broad range of legitimate protest activities, such as documenting factory conditions without permission, organizing boycotts which may impact a company’s bottom line, or engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. According to the recent ruling, these activities could still be prosecuted as terrorism under the law. CCR and the activists will appeal the ruling, and DDF and allies will be on Capitol Hill with a renewed effort to overturn the law.

WhistleblowerTrial Needs a WhistleblowerAfter 1,000 days in detention without a trial, Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to charges that could land him in jail for another 20 years.

Kevin Zeese is on the steering committee of the Bradley Manning Support Network. He was in the courtroom to hear the guilty plea and observed “Bradley Manning made an excellent statement in court today explaining why he took the actions he did -- for all the right reasons. He gave the statement confidently, with intelligence and politely. He saw what was happening in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and wanted the people to know. He saw how the US was abusing its power in diplomacy, beginning with Iceland and then all over the world and wanted all of us to know. He read a long written statement (38 pages) that explained his history, the actions he took and why.”

We thought we’d have to confine ourselves to Kevin’s impressions and notes from the courtroom, because the government has refused to publish any of the transcripts, briefs or court motions, and has heavily redacted all defense motions. Writing for The Guardian, Ed Pilkington, described it as “systemic furtiveness of the U.S. government.” It’s an open trial, the public and press is free to attend, but must rely on hastily scribbled notes and Freedom of Information Act requests in order to pass on what they see and hear in the courtroom. Reporters are not able to read the briefs that are being argued and discussed in the courtroom, so they often can’t accurately report on the proceedings. This lack of transparency is a huge problem for accountability and the public’s right to know.

This whistleblower trial needs a whistleblower.

Fortunately, someone managed to surreptitiously tape Manning’s plea statement for all the world to hear. It’s been posted online at the Press Freedom Foundation, co-founded by Dan Ellsberg to support aggressive public interest journalism. Find a link on our website.

Dozens of media outlets are fighting for access to the documents and official transcripts of the trial. It’s important because Manning’s plea doesn’t bring the case to an end. He still faces trial on several charges, including ‘aiding the enemy,’ which carries a possible life sentence. His bench trial is set to begin in June.

A lavishly illustrated, witty, and original look at the awesome power of the political cartoon throughout history to enrage, provoke, and amuse. As a former editor of The New York Times Magazine and the longtime

editor of The Nation, DDF Board member Victor S. Navasky knows just how transformative—and incendiary—cartoons can be.

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FOIA VictoryFor decades activists at SOA Watch have been fighting to shut down the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) a U.S. military training school for Latin American soldiers which they say is linked to human rights abuses in Central and South America.

FOIA had been an invaluable tool in the campaign, allowing SOA Watch to compile the names and information of every soldier and instructor at the school from 1946 to 2003, and definitively link those soldiers directly to death squads, military dictatorships and torture. After this information was shared with Congress, the Department of Defense refused to disclose any more information about students or teachers at the school. A battle for transparency ensued, involving competing amendments to the Defense Authorization bill and a special waiver signed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates claiming (what else?) a national security concern in keeping the names secret, and taking the government to court.

In April a United States District Judge ordered the Pentagon to release the names of those who have been trained or teach at the school. “The decision by the court is a victory for transparency and human rights, and against government secrecy,” said SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois.

The release of the names is essential for Congress to make decisions about foreign military training. After the upholding of the value of transparency, and the public’s right to know, over the Obama Administration’s secrecy, human rights organizations will use this ruling to further expose the negative impact of the SOA/ WHINSEC in Latin America.

NATO 5Mark Neiweem, a 28-year-old Chicago activist, accepted a non-cooperating plea deal on April 12 on felony charges brought on by interactions with undercover Chicago police officers who had infiltrated activist groups prior to the May 2012 NATO protests. Neiweem pleaded guilty to a probation violation charge from a previous conviction and to solicitation and attempted possession of an explosive or incendiary device.

Neiweem had already spent 329 days in the Cook County jail, and will serve out the remainder of his 3 year sentence in a state prison. “The politically motivated prosecution and abuse Mark suffered in Cook County Jail point to a degree of coordinated state repression and coercion which was physically and psychologically unbearable,” said Rachel Unterman of the NATO 5 Defense Committee. “Ultimately, Mark decided to end his ordeal and be transferred out of Cook County Jail by taking a non-cooperating plea deal.”

Neiweem and the other defendants in the NATO 5 were arrested in the lead up to the protests amid great publicity. They were all targeted by the same undercover Chicago cops, knows as “Mo” and “Gloves,” because of their perceived politics and associations. Last November, Sebastian Senakiewicz took a non-cooperating plea deal to a charge of falsely making a terrorist threat and is currently serving his 4-month boot camp sentence, after which he is expected to be deported to his native Poland. The NATO 3—Brent Betterly, Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase—are all facing conspiracy and terrorism charges. Their recent constitutionality challenge to the terrorism charges was denied by the judge, although they may have the opportunity to raise this challenge again at trial. Their trial is currently scheduled for mid-September of this year.

BOSTON AND THE FRAGILITY OF LIBERTYIf Boston teaches us one thing, it is that civil liberties in the United States are under heavy assault.It was a horrible scene. Explosions rocked a civilian epicenter. Bodies laid on the streets as medical workers raced to save as many lives as they could. The blast left several dead and a nation stunned. Still, the gruesome and brutal attack to alter their way of life. No rapid assault on civil liberties. No calls for diluting constitutional protections.

The event described was not in Boston. It was in Norway, where in 2011 over 80 people, many of whom children, were killed by a lone murderer. The attack was the deadliest on the country’s soil since World War II. Still, the official response was not for creating a police state, but “more democracy, more openness, but not naivety.” If only America was listening.

Civil libertarians have lamented for over 10 years the blistering rapidity at which civil liberties in the United States have eroded. September 11th marked the beginning of this transformation. The recent bombings in Boston serve as a painful checkpoint on the road to a police state.

The road has been clear to those watching. Methods of surveillance are becoming more and more sophisticated, easier to access, and their use is becoming much more widespread. The Patriot Act is being used in ways few Americans would accept. Several senators have warned the American people that they would be shocked as to how the Patriot Act is being interpreted. This specific warning is in regard to section 215, which appears to have a classified interpretation regarding domestic surveillance activities.

The NSA’s warrantless surveillance program acts as a massive dragnet surveillance program of domestic communications that has been going on since 2001. Former NSA employee, William Binney, explains how the NSA’s foreign surveillance technology has been turned on domestic communications of every person in the United States in a recent interview on Democracy Now!

More recently, a Supreme Court case showcased the brazen attempts by the U.S. government to assault civil liberties. In U.S. v. Jones, the government asked to Court to grant it the ability to warrantlessly install a GPS device to track the movement of any and every person in the United States.

Then, bombs went off in Boston. For days, the city was transformed into an experiment in martial law. Heavily armored police in military grade vehicles roamed the empty streets. Law enforcement went door to door, barging into homes as if they were back in Baghdad.

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Politicians called for disregarding the rule of law and trying suspects in military tribunals. And at the end of the day, America cheered it on, step by step.

If there is one thing America must take away from the Boston attacks it is this: the more we as a nation continue to succumb to fear the closer we step towards an unabashed police state. It is not terrorism that is the biggest threat to our freedoms, it is ourselves.

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Dear Troublemakers,On May 9, the House Homeland Security Committee held the first in what will be a series of hearings in response to the Boston marathon bombing. I wanted to make a few observations and arm you with a few facts to counter some of the assertions politicians are making:1. Don’t buy the argument that the FBI’s hands were tied. The FBI questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev because the Russian government raised concerns. Many news outlets have reported that ‘officials’ say the FBI was required to stop its investigation into the elder brother because it found no derogatory information after a certain time period (some have said 90 days, others 6 months). The truth is that under the Attorney General’s Guidelines, the FBI had ample tools at their disposal to conduct an ‘assessment’ which requires NO evidence of any criminal activity or intent and has NO time limit: physical surveillance, interview families, neighbors, associates and others without identifying themselves as FBI agents, dig through garbage, and to task a paid informant to uncover information (or even develop a plot to entrap). 2. The vast range of people who “hate” U.S. foreign policy renders that metric absolutely worthless in discovering a potential terrorist. Nevertheless, the media, the public, and even law enforcement are too quick to draw a connection between “radicalization” or dissent and potential terrorism. It’s a lot of hooey and needs to be called out every time it

is raised. 3. The key question is: “why does the FBI waste so many resources investigating innocent people?” Tamerlan and his mother were both apparently on the National Counterterrorism Center’s TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment) list... along with over 700,000 people. Add to that the over one million names on the FBI’s watch list and one can begin to understand that the bar is very low for being added to the list and the FBI cannot and should not spend vast resources investigating each one. We must note that at the time that the FBI was looking into Tsarnaev, they were infiltrating the Occupy movement (with no information about criminal activity or intent). It’s instructive to note, as many politicians are raising concerns about ‘stove-piping’ and lack of communication among agencies, that the information-sharing about Occupy was robust and deftly coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security.Defending Dissent Foundation and our allies will be raising these issues with members of Congress and the media in the context of the search and confirmation of a new director for the FBI. We’ll be asking for your help in the months to come, but I urge you to monitor your local papers and write to the editors when they equate dissent with terrorism, or misrepresent the tools available to the FBI to investigate innocent people.Sue

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