Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mont!rich From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Subject: Resisting Spying & Attacks on Environmental Groups Message-ID: <1991Jun23.175312.519@pencil.cs.missouri.edu> Sender: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) Organization: PACH Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1991 17:53:12 GMT Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Lines: 323 Downloaded from: THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ELECTRONIC FORUM Networking the National Lawyers Guild Civil Liberties Committee Chip Berlet - SYSOP (System Operator) Operating 24 hours-2400-1200/300 baud 617-221-5815 Resisting Spying & Attacks on Environmental Groups by Chip Berlet Recent events indicate the environmental movement is being subjected to obvious surveillance, intimidation, anonymous letters, phony leaflets, telephone threats, police over-reaction and brutality, dubious arrests, and other threatening actions unfamiliar to most environmental activists. Experienced organizers warn these techniques often create side effects such as false divisions, rivalry, paranoia, false accusations, internal strife, and overall stressful circumstances that divert energy and time from the real work at hand. The type of subtle and not-so-subtle harassment being experienced by the environmental movement may be new to eco- activists, but to civil rights attorney Brian Spears and other advocates for civil and constitutional rights, these types of incidents strike an all-too-familiar chord. Spears observes that, "activists on Central American issues, Native American organizers, Black power advocates, and others dissidents have been subject to unconstitutional covert surveillance and disruption for many years." In fact when Spears attended the annual National Lawyers Guild (NLG) convention last summer in Austin, Texas, he found not only two workshops on the grassroots toxics movement, but also two workshops on repression and attacks on political activists. Brian Glick, an attorney who spoke at the NLG's political repression workshop in Austin, is the author of a security guidebook for activists titled "War at Home." Glick concludes that historically, "dissenting groups come under attack as they begin to seriously threaten the status quo." Since the environmental movement "threatens to meddle with people who control billions of dollars, it should be no surprise when they fight back," says Glick, "especially as corporate and government officials come to realize how dramatically environmentalists expect them to restructure their activities." Glick says the bombing attack on the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand presaged the current situation in the U.S. "Domestic covert action is a powerful deterrent to democratic discussion of public policy and effective organizing for social change," says Glick echoing a number of civil liberties activists interviewed for this article. "We need to take security seriously without being distracted from our main goals", says Glick, "and one way is to educate ourselves about what has happened in the past." Glick and other authors and academics who have studied government intelligence abuse and political repression frequently find people are skeptical that human rights violations can happen in the United States. "We don't like to face this aspect of our society," agrees Spears, "but its part of the historical record." Assorted Sordid Pasts Most documented information about government harassment of social change activists came to light in the 1970's following a series of Congressional hearings which took a critical look at the FBI, CIA, military intellignce, federal agencies and the private security industry. The most sensational revelations revolved around the FBI's Counterintelligence Program or COINTELPRO in Bureau jargon. In its final report, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, often called the Church Committee, concluded: "COINTELPRO [was] a series of covert action programs directed against domestic groups....Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence." The COINTELPRO operations targetted political groups calling for social change, including civil rights and antiwar activists, civil liberties advocates, radicals, feminists, even food co-ops and health clinics. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was a major target in a campaign that included anonymous threatening letters and attempts to scare away his funders. In one ten year period starting in 1966, the FBI employed over 5,000 secret informers in Chicago alone. According to Glick, a review of the 2,370 officially approved COINTELPRO operations admitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee shows four main techniques: infiltration, psychological warfare from the outside, harassment through the legal system, and extralegal force and violence. In the latter category falls the sinister collaboration between the FBI and right-wing vigilante groups. For instance, in Chicago the FBI and local police worked with the Legion of Justice, a rightist group that burglarized offices of antiwar activists. In San Diego the FBI hid the weapon used by a Secret Army Organization sniper in a shooting incident directed at a local activist professor which resulted in a woman being injured by a stray bullet. The revelations of the Church Committee, the Watergate scandal and other [exposes] led to the passage of some valuable but limited reforms that briefly curtailed the abuses of the intelligence agencies. But along with the election of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency came a concerted and successful attempt by the intelligence agencies to abolish the reforms which had restrained them during the late 1970's. The early 1980's also saw tremendous growth in the private security industry coupled with an Executive Order signed by President Reagan authorizing the contracting of intelligence investigations to private firms outside the reach of Congressional oversight and laws protecting privacy. The FBI and other agencies also redefined the terms "terrorism" and "foreign intelligence" to reflect a broad and self-serving interpretation; and then argued their investigations into social change groups met the terms of specific legal language allowing the FBI greater investigative latitude in probes involving political violence and foreign spying. The result was that by 1983, FBI agents and private security specialists had launched broad intrusions into the lives of ordinary citizens engaged in otherwise legal activities. Ross Gelbspan is the author of a forthcoming book on the FBI's campaign from 1981 to 1985 against groups critical of U.S. policy in Central America. Gelbspan says "While the FBI conducts legitimate criminal investigations, its carrying out of unauthorized politically-motivated police activity is more than just history." For proof, Gelbspan (a veteran reporter for the Boston Globe who helped pen a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative series) points to documents obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act, lawsuits, and Congressional hearings which show that in an FBI probe of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), "the FBI took at face value allegations by right-wing security specialists that members of (CISPES) were terrorists or foreign agents." The FBI probe of CISPES moved beyond surveillance to attacks on CISPES, its members and allies. Thousands of citiens were referenced in secret dossiers. The FBI also used the services of right-wing sleuths including a network of conservative campus activists who attended meetings and then submitted reports to the FBI. "The CISPES probe by the FBI was not an aberration by a handful of field agents," says Gelbspan refuting widely published reports. "It was clearly approved at the highest levels of the Bureau and was apprently sanctioned by the NSC and the White House." "Looking at the CISPES investigation in light of other political investigations dating back to the 1950's, one gets the distinct impression that the FBI sees its mandate as neutralizing or disabling every political movement that has the potential for bringing about significant changes in the American political system," argues Gelbspan. Kit Gage, the Washington representative of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL) agrees with Gelbspan. "We know first hand the kind of havoc the FBI can wreak on a group exercising its First Amendment rights," says Gage who has leafed through FBI files recording "38 years of surveillance on NCARL and its predecessors which produced 130,000 pages of files but not one criminal conviction." What is well documented "is an incredible amount of harassment and disruption of our organization," Gage charges. "Since the FBI seems unable to regulate itself," says Gage, "NCARL is currently seeking legal remedies in the form of legislation that would limit FBI investigations solely to criminal activity." Hundreds of law school professors have endorsed NCARL's proposed legislation. Meanwhile, surveillance and disruption continue to hamstring activists. At the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, the Movement Support Network (MSN) maintains a list of suspicious incidents called in by groups around the country. According to MSN coordinator Jinsoo Kim, "since 1984 there have been over 300 suspicious incidents including 150 unexplained break-ins" where usually files are rifled but expensive office equipment not stolen. Suspicions point to an ad-hoc alliance of FBI agents and informants, other government investigators, far right vigilantes, and private security sleuths who trade information and justify their actions in the name of national security and fighting terrorism. The zealousness of these snoops can lead them to break the law in pursuit of their quarry. Earth First activist Dave Foreman says his unfortunately intimate knowledge of FBI informant- provocateurs leads him to not rule out the possibility that the California bombing incident was the result of a covert operation....a charge that reflects an accurate historical awareness of how far some agents are willing to go in an attempt to trap their target. An example of this involved Connecticut animal rights activist Fran Trutt, charged with attempting to plant a bomb she says was meant to scare an offical of the U.S. Surgical Corporation which uses animals for medical tests and sales demonstrations. Her accomplices, not charged with any crime, turned out to be private security agents hired by U.S. Surgical. Trutt's attorney, John Williams, says there is "absolutely no question that Trutt was enticed" into considering the bombing by agents from Perceptions International." Furthermore, several months prior to the attempted bombing, according to Williams "the entire situation was reviewed at a meeting that included representatives of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Connecticut States Attorney's office, the security director of U.S. Surgical and at least one representative of Perceptions International...and the topic of the meeting was Fran Trutt." According to Williams, it was the agents of Perceptions International, working for U.S. Surgical but posing as Trutt's friends, who suggested the bombing, paid for the purchase of the pipe bomb, and drove her to the U.S. Surgical parking lot. When Trutt had second thoughts while on her way to the parking lot, she called a trusted friend, and was encouraged to proceed--that "friend", too, was a private undercover agent from Perceptions International. Although Trutt was clearly set up, under Connecticut law she needed to show substantial state involvement to use entrapment as a defense, a problematic tactic given the available evidence. Trutt reluntantly accepted a plea bargain and will serve a short prison term rather than risk a lengthy sentence on more serious charges. One person troubled by the Trutt case is Gary T. Marx, a sociology professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of "Undercover: Police Surveillance in America." Marx says serious ethical problems can arise "When police must depend on persons whose professional lives routinely involve deceit and concealment and who have a motive to lie." Informants "often have strong incentives to see that others break the law," says Marx, who worries that our democratic values are being threatened by the increased use of technologically sophisticated forms of electronic surveillance and computerized dossier-keeping. What To Do! Jinsoo Kim of the Movement Support Network urges that environmental activists pick up some simple security consciousness and briefly study the history of political repression against dissent in America. "There has been a whole generation of activists since the revelations about the FBI COINTELPRO program and Watergate," says Kim. "Something that happened fifteen, or even five years ago, its as if it never happened. We need to teach the lessons learned by previous movements about how to empower ourselves and fight back without losing sight of our political goals." Kim urges people to contact her at MSN if they want printed information on repression and helpful security tips, have an incident to report, or need advice. Sheila O'Donnell, a progressive private eye for twenty years who specializes in political cases, suggests environmentalists need to be very suspicious of attempts to define individuals or groups in a way that isolates them. "Smear campaigns often are a part of disruption operations, so charges of eco-terrorism and allegations of violence should be carefully considered on the basis of documented facts, not lurid headlines," says O'Donnell. "And if people use different techniques, that's OK," adds Brian Glick, "there is a place for lobbying, grassroots organizing, education, and militant action...they reinforce each other." Susan B. Jordan, lawyer for two Earth First! activists whose car was bombed, points out that her clients "were easy people to whip up public opinion against," because of their reputation for militancy. Attorney John Williams offers this advice based on the Trutt Case and 20 years of defending political activists: "Assume the other side is listening, consider everything you do as if it will be played back in a courtroom or appear on the front page of the local newspaper. If you don't act this way, you are very foolish, and could not only go down the tubes, but take your friends and your movement with you. Fran Trutt's problem was that this never occured her. She was literally seduced. It has been a hard lesson for her to learn" Sheila O'Donnell advises that talking to the FBI or other investigators without the advice or presence of an attorney is not a good idea. "It's hard for some people to understand this," conceeds O'Donnell, "But it simply isn't an issue of social courtesy. Individual FBI agents or other investigators might be friendly and assure you they don't think you or your friends are criminals or terrorists, but they pass along the information they glean from you to faceless bureaucracies with a history of attacking activists and derailing their movements. You never know what seemingly-harmless bit of information might get you or a friend in trouble," insists O'Donnell, "an attorney will protect your rights, not the FBI." O'Donnell recommends all political activists use the "buddy system" where group members share phone numbers and a pledge to call each other if anything suspicious or threatening happens, no matter how seemingly silly or trivial. "By talking with friends about strange events, the events lose their sinister aspect, and you gain courage by sharing your fears," says O'Donnell. "I know talking about security makes some people nervous," she admits. "But other political movements have adopted simple common sense attitudes about security and still reached their political goals." O'Donnell says when groups are harassed it is important to "promote caring working relationships within the membership and keep a healthy sense of skepticism and humor." One thing her investigations have shown clearly, says O'Donnell, "is that it is not only true that democracy is worth fighting for...but you also have to fight for it just to keep it alive." Resources Movement Support Network 666 Broadway New York, NY 10012 212-614-6422 National Committee Against Repressive Legislation 236 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E. Suite 406 Washington, D.C. 20002 202-543-7659