ACLU Eyes Increased Domestic Surveillance

The following statement, slightly abridged, waswritten by Laura W. Murphy, director of the national office of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union

American history is replete with examplesof law enforcement and intelligence organizations responding to anational crisis or social upheaval by asking Congress for greaterfreedom in how they can spy on American citizens and immigrants.Generally, these requests come with the soothing promise: “Trust us,we’re the government; we’ll only use these powers against the badguys.”

The Bush Administration’s defense of its new and frighteningly broadanti-terrorism bill is being couched in exactly these terms.Unfortunately, history has shown us that, more often that not, theseexpansions of domestic surveillance powers are used to violate thefreedoms guaranteed to the American public by the Constitution and theBill of Rights.

In Bush’s anti-terrorism proposals, many of the provisions enhance thepower of the FBI to spy on Americans for “intelligence” as opposed tocriminal purposes. Other “information sharing” provisions directhighly personal information about Americans into the hands of the CIAand the Department of Defense, without meaningful restrictions on howit is used or re-distributed. The historical record makes clear thatunchecked trust in the government to spy on its citizens responsiblyis misplaced. The following examples prove the point.

COINTELPRO: Created out of fear of growing social dissidenceand operating under a veil of secrecy, the FBI’s infamous CounterIntelligence Program (COINTELPRO), created under Director J. EdgarHoover, harassed and spied on a vast number of peaceful social protestgroups. Few members of any of the groups targeted by COINTELPRO wereever charged with a crime. The vast majority of the organizations andindividuals targeted for surveillance by the FBI and COINTELPRO wereavowedly non-violent. One of the most prominent public figuresinvestigated by the FBI and COINTELPRO was the Rev. Martin Luther KingJr. In 1986, a federal court determined that COINTELPRO wasresponsible for at least 204 burglaries; the use of 1,300 informants;the theft of 12,600 documents; 20,000 illegal wiretap days and 12,000bug days.

Stop Index: The FBI also abused its authority during theVietnam War, operating what it called a “stop index.” The Bureau usedits National Crime Information Center, comprised of a number ofcomputerized databases, to track and monitor the activities oflaw-abiding citizens opposed to American involvement in the war.

CONUS: Possibly the most frightening abuse of power by agovernment actor involved the military’s cold war era, the CONUS(Continental US) program expanded its operations in the 1950s and1960s. In violation of the American tradition of preventing the armedforces from engaging in law enforcement and domestic surveillance, theUS military ran this cloak-and-dagger operation designed to monitorcivilian political activity and dissent. CONUS collected andmaintained files on upwards of 100,000 political activists and usedundercover operatives recruited from the Army to infiltrate theseactivist groups and steal confidential information and files fordistribution to federal, state and local governments. In 1972, JusticeDouglas said, “This case is cancer in our body politic.”

Operation Chaos: During the social upheavals of the 1960s, theCIA initiated “Operation Chaos” under which it spied on as many as7,000 Americans involved in the peace movement. In clear violation ofits statutory mission to co-ordinate only foreign intelligenceoperations, the agency ventured into the domestic spying business andcreated its own version of COINTELPRO.

Filegate: In 1993-94, the Clinton White House improperlyreceived thousands of documents from the FBI, including private andconfidential information about members of the first Bush White House.

CISPES: In 1988, the FBI investigation into the Committee inSolidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) began to come tolight. The FBI’s own files seem to suggest that the investigation ofthis group as a terrorist organization had been initiated solely onpolitical grounds.

In light of the September 11th attacks, the lessons of thesehistorical examples of inappropriate and unconstitutional domesticsurveillance are all the more relevant. We cannot let the FBI engageagain in a COINTELPRO-like operation against law-abiding Americancitizens. We cannot let the CIA step outside its own charter and beginsurveillance inside American borders as it has in the past. And wecannot let the military again engage in domestic espionage.

For further reading go to:www.aclu.org/news.