Murray Polner: The Police Are Once Again Intimidating Peace Protesters

Murray Polner, author of No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran, in Newsday (March 16, 2004):

As we approach the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the coming spring nationwide demonstrations, not to mention the coming Republican convention in New York City, there is growing apprehension among civil libertarians and ordinary Americans that the FBI is once again dredging up its infamous J. Edgar Hoover legacy of spying on political dissenters who are exercising their constitutional rights.

Last October the FBI notified local police agencies to keep close tabs on people and groups opposed to the war and occupation of Iraq. Since it is obvious that the Bush administration loves playing the 9/11 card for political purposes, it is no surprise that efforts are being made to squelch as much domestic dissension as it can.

We've been through this wave of repression before in the 20th century with calamitous results, when government snoopers developed a vast spying apparatus during the '20s, McCarthyite '50s, and the '60s, '70s and '80s against nonviolent dissenters who dared challenge the wisdom of U.S. foreign policies. And though the FBI (and others in the government) deny they are hindering free speech or assembly - declaring that they are only concerned with deterring potential criminals and terrorists - their October memorandum nevertheless asked some 17,000 local and state police agencies to keep a very close eye on anti-war demonstrations and report allegedly suspicious activity to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The risk now is that the"war against terrorism" has given policing agents on all levels greater latitude to play ideological sentry. In Chicago, for example, the Sun-Times reported in February that undercover cops have been spying on different groups, including the American Friends Service Committee. Political espionage has occurred in Denver, Colorado Springs, Austin, Fresno, Atlanta and probably many other places.

In New York City in February 2003, tens of thousands of anti-war marchers were forced into holding pens, assaulted with pepper sprays and many of the arrested compelled by the police to reveal their political leanings and histories of earlier protests. And in Hernando County, Fla., peaceful anti-war pickets carrying signs were put under surveillance and their personal lives investigated, which led the St. Petersburg Times to properly characterize the police response as"intolerance for political dissent."

Take Jeanne Pahls, a fourth- grade teacher in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the founders of a local anti-war group, Stop the War Machine . In March 2003, before the invasion, members of the group organized a demonstration. When they noticed a white pickup cab being used to videotape the affair, she complained to the police and was told by a detective that it belonged to its criminal investigations unit.