Homeland Security

DATE=11/27/03

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=F-B-I SURVEILLANCE

NUMBER=6-130162

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: A recent report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun surveillance of domestic anti-Iraq war protests is causing a good deal of consternation in many newspapers. We get a sampling now from V-O-A's ____________in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: The New York Times reports the F-B-I has begun keeping files on many anti-war protests and their leaders in the belief that such protests provide a fertile ground for terrorists. However civil libertarians point out that peaceful protests against government policies is guaranteed in the U-S constitution. However some local police chiefs are supporting the project suggesting it is justified by the continuing domestic terror threat since the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. However few papers, including The Boston Globe, share that view.

VOICE: Attorney General John Ashcroft should be the chief protector of the United States Constitution, not its chief threat. By allowing the F-B-I to ask local police departments to report antiwar activities to the F-B-I's counter terrorism squads, [Mr.] Ashcroft makes the F-B-I look unsuited to protect Americans against the terrorist threat from al-Qaida. With this swipe at Americans [exercising] their constitutional right to free speech, [Mr.] Ashcroft and the F-B-I demonstrate an abject failure to understand the delicate grandeur of American liberty and the political profile of the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

TEXT: More outrage in the Middle West, where Missouri's Saint Louis Post-Dispatch complains:

VOICE: Last year, when Attorney General Ashcroft expanded the F-B-I's power to spy on Americans, he promised not to repeat [the agency's first Director] J. Edgar Hoover's domestic spying abuses. Now it turns out the F-B-I has asked police to collect information about antiwar protests and protesters -- exactly the kind of excess that critics feared. The president has often said that this is a war against terrorism and for freedom. Hunting for terrorists among Americans exercising their freedoms won't make us safer -- or freer.

TEXT: In Pennsylvania, there are other misgivings at Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette.

VOICE: A Republican television campaign ad run in Iowa this week charges that "some" are now attacking President Bush for attacking terrorists. Considered alongside a recent F-B-I memo to law enforcement officials instructing them to monitor anti-war protesters, the two actions raise the disturbing possibility that people attending Democratic political rallies will become the subjects of F-B-I information hunts.

The Republican Party and Mr. Bush should think twice before seeking to smear anyone who criticizes him, including Democratic presidential candidates, as supporters of terrorism.

TEXT: Views of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Lastly, in northern New Jersey, The [Bergen County] Record suggests the news is "unsettling."

VOICE: The F-B-I has a plausible answer. In an age of terrorism, it is increasingly focused on "extremist elements." Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Attorney General Ashcroft gave the F-B-I the green light to attend any gathering that is open to the public.

But civil-liberties and free-speech groups are rightly concerned that Mr. Ashcroft's directives may be abused by overzealous agents who could infiltrate peace groups and "spy" on their activities. The F-B-I's focus is misdirected. Demonstrations against the war in Iraq in American cities have been generally peaceful.

TEXT: With those thoughts from The [Bergen] Record, we conclude this sampling of comment on recent revelations that the F-B-I has resumed surveillance of anti-war protests and their leaders.

NEB/ANG/RH