By Cliff Montgomery – Sept. 21st, 2010
The FBI from 2001 to 2006 conducted probes of non-violent U.S. activists, classifying their actions of civildisobedience as “acts of terrorism,” according to a study released yesterday by the Inspector General of theJustice Department.
The Bureau also was found to have wrongly retained data about the activists in its files and to have extendedthe length of the investigations without justification, according to the report.
The FBI “terrorist” investigations involved such groups as The Catholic Worker (groups of religious pacifists), aQuaker peace activist, the Thomas Merton Center (a Pittsburgh-based social justice center), People for theEthical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Greenpeace.
The Justice Department’s Inspector General did not state that the Bureau targeted these groups for engagingtheir Natural Right to free speech–perhaps because that would be a certain break of FBI rules–but fault wasfound with the FBI’s “factually weak” decision to conduct these investigations in the first place.
“FBI agents and supervisors sometimes provided the [Office of the Inspector General] with speculative, after-the-fact rationalizations for their prior decisions to open investigations that we did not find persuasive,” statedthe report.
