During the last dozen years, the FBI has improperly spied on or investigated nonprofit organizations and activists affiliated with them. [1] The FBI also made false statements about one of these incidents to Congress, the media and the public.
Following a string of news articles about FBI investigations of nonprofit advocacy groups, some Members of Congress requested that the Inspector General of the Department of Justice review these cases. The Office of the Inspector General issued its report in September 2010, regarding FBI investigations between 2001-06. The report was sharply critical of the FBI. The Office of the Inspector General
"concluded that the factual basis of opening some of the investigations of individuals affiliated with the groups was factually weak".In some cases, we also found that the FBI extended the duration of investigations involving advocacy groups or their members without adequate basis". In some cases, the FBI classified some of its investigations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its "Acts of Terrorism" classification." [2]
In particular, the Office of the Inspector General concluded that:
- The FBI's investigation of the Thomas Merton Center ("Pittsburgh's peace and social justice center") and the FBI's misstatements about it "raised the most troubling issues in this review." [3] The OIG report noted that an FBI agent was directed to attend a Pittsburgh peace rally sponsored by the Merton Center. The agent wrote a short report on it, which bore the synopsis line "[t]o report results of investigation of Pittsburgh anti-war activity." [4] The OIG report stated that it found this FBI report "extremely troubling on its face. It described no legitimate purpose for the FBI to attend the event. It created a strong impression that the FBI's reason for being there was to monitor the First Amendment activities of persons with anti-war views. It supplied no evidence or even suspicion that any criminal or terrorist element was associated with the Merton Center or likely to be present at the event." [5]
- "[T]he FBI's statements to Congress and the public about the reason the agent attended the event [Pittsburgh peace rally] were inaccurate and misleading".the FBI stated in a press response and [FBI] Director Mueller stated in Congressional testimony that the FBI's surveillance at the event was based on specific information from an ongoing investigation and conducted to identify a particular individual. These statements were not true. We found no evidence that the FBI had any information at the time of the event that any terrorism subject would be present at the event. Instead, we found that FBI personnel created two inconsistent and erroneous explanations of the surveillance of the anti-war rally, stating inaccurately that the surveillance was a response to information that certain persons of interest in international terrorism matters would be present." [6]
- "[T]he factual predication for the [FBI's] preliminary inquiries"for a federal crime was thin" [7] regarding members of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, an "affiliate" of the Thomas Merton Center. The POG was planning to protest the November 2003 Free Trade of the Americas meetings in Miami.
- Regarding an FBI agent's recruitment of a source to surveil the POG, "the agent's purpose in recruiting this source"was to establish his participation in the source program, not to prevent or detect terrorism. Because of this improper purpose, we concluded that the FBI's collection of information about POG members' First Amendment activities was not "pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity' and therefore raised serious questions under the Privacy Act, the Attorney General's Guidelines, and FBI policy." [8]
- Regarding the FBI's investigation of a staff member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "The Field Division's decision to operate the case as a full investigation contributed to the case remaining open for 6 years. We concluded that the lengthy duration of the investigation was unreasonable and was inconsistent with FBI policy requiring that an investigation with potential impacts on First Amendment activity "not be permitted to extend beyond the point at which its underlying justification no longer exists.'"' [9]
- Regarding the FBI's investigation of PETA itself, "The investigation remained open for a total of 15 months, during which time the case received 3 90-day extensions"we questioned the factual basis for the third extension." [10]
- "We identified one PETA-related case that we believe did not have a sufficient factual basis even for a preliminary inquiry." [11]
- Regarding an FBI investigation of Greenpeace and its members, "the FBI articulated little or no basis for suspecting a violation of any federal criminal statute".the FBI's opening EC [electronic communication] did not articulate any basis to suspect that they were planning any federal crimes".We also found that the FBI kept this investigation open for over 3 years, long past the corporate shareholder meetings that the subjects were supposedly planning to disrupt".We concluded that the investigation was kept open "beyond the point at which its underlying justification no longer existed,' which was inconsistent with the FBI's Manual of Investigative and Operational Guidelines (MIOG)." [12]
-
Regarding the
investigation of the Catholic Worker and its members, "the FBI's
classification of one of these matters under the Acts of Terrorism
classification was inappropriate, because the acts in question
(trespass on a military facility) did not include the use of
violence or force."
[13]
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