NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5306

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From: Rick Francis <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Bush's Penchant For Spying (editorial)
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BUSH'S PENCHANT FOR DOMESTIC SPYING
by Patrick G. Coy

An excerpt:
"The historical record of the Reagan-Bush team is quite damning as
well.  It includes widespread illegal FBI activities in 1981-1983 against
138 domestic organizations opposed to Reagan-Bush policies in Central
America.  A July 1989 Senate Intelligence Committee report of the
FBI's operation concluded that the agency had violated the First
Amendment rights of thousands of U.S. citizens.
        This domestic spying included infiltration, paid informants,
warrantless wiretaps, break-ins and the routine photographing of
people participating in Central American demonstrations.  All 59 FBI
field offices took part.  The names of 13,198 individual Americans and
11,087 groups were illegally added to the FBI files."
____________________________________
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 21, 1992.  Page 3B

BUSH'S PENCHANT FOR DOMESTIC SPYING
President Has Done The Very Things His Aides Had Accused Perot of
Doing

By Patrick G. Coy

Revelations about Ross Perot's penchant for hiring private investigators
received extensive coverage.  Republicans tried to seize the moral high
ground, suggesting that a Perot administration could not be trusted to
safeguard civil liberties.  Dan Quayle used scare tactics June 22 when
he said, "Imagine having the IRS, the FBI and the CIA under his [Perot's]
control.  Who would be investigated next?"
        Quayle is quite right to have us imagine the frightening
possibilities.  But those possibilities do not go away with the candidacy
of Perot.  The electorate ought to also examine the historical record of
George Bush.  Here we do not have to imagine anything to be
frightened:  The facts are scary enough.
        During the Persian Gulf crisis and war, President Bush turned the
FBI loose on the Arab-American community.  From December 1900
through February 1992, FBI agents conducted around 300 "interviews"
with Arab-Americans.  Most of these occurred in the work place,
unannounced in advance, placing the interviewees in a vulnerable
position with supervisors and colleagues.
        Disingenuously disguised as an effort to investigate the anti-Arab
violence then sweeping the nation, the FBI asked instead about
political affiliations and "terrorist activities."  Bush's G-men made the
unfounded and illegal assumption that U. S. citizens would know
something about terrorism simply because they are Arab or are
opponents of U. S. policy.
        The Center for Constitutional Rights monitored the program,
producing an annotated list of the incidents.  It reveals a concerted
campaign to intimidate an ethnic community into political inactivity.
        In Brooklyn, N.Y., FBI agents visited six stores that sell Middle
Eastern products, asking about "Arab terrorists."  Agents in
Youngstown, Ohio, asked eight Arab-Americans about their views on
the Palestinian question, Bush's handling of Middle East issues and
their knowledge of planned terrorist acts.  Apparently, as a cover, the
sessions usually ended with a request to contact the FBI in the event of
anti-Arab violence.
        Arab community leaders were irate.  Jim Zogby, president of the
Arab-American Institute, said, "Imagine if they went into a Knights of
Columbus meeting and started asking questions about the Irish
Republican Army."  Only when Rep. Don Edwards, the California
Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and
Constitutional Rights, threatened to convene hearings into the FBI
program in late January 1992 did the agency finally back off.  Of
course, by then the damage was done.  A community was intimidated
and legitimate dissent stifled.
        The chill deliberately infused into the democratic marketplace by
a Bush-Quayle administration eager to put the nation on a war footing
extended beyond the Arab-American community.  In Tacoma Park,
Md., a researcher who wrote about the dangers of gulf war weapons
was visited by the FBI at her home.  The families of some reservists
who filed conscientious objector applications also received home visits
by the bureau.  A journalist in Hawaii who wrote about Jeff Patterson,
a Marine who refused duty in the war, was subjected to military
investigation.  But that is not all.  The journalist subsequently received
notece from the IRS that he was being audited.  As Quayle would say,
"Imagine that."
        The historical record of the Reagan-Bush team is quite damning as
well.  It includes widespread illegal FBI activities in 1981-1983 against
138 domestic organizations opposed to Reagan-Bush policies in Central
America.  A July 1989 Senate Intelligence Committee report of the
FBI's operation concluded that the agency had violated the First
Amendment rights of thousands of U.S. citizens.
        This domestic spying included infiltration, paid informants,
warrantless wiretaps, break-ins and the routine photographing of
people participating in Central American demonstrations.  All 59 FBI
field offices took part.  The names of 13,198 individual Americans and
11,087 groups were illegally added to the FBI files.
        Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren declared in
July 1989, "The files contain information about domestic political
activities that the FBI should never have gathered.  That information
must be removed from the FBI records so it cannot be used to damage
the reputation of innocent persons."  Not only has the information not
been removed by the Bush-Quayle FBI, but it has been disseminated to
other government agencies.  Here, too, a healthy imagination reveals
sobering possibilities.
        The lesson here is not that one candidate should be trusted any
more than the others.  Bush and Quayle have proven the bankruptcy of
that approach.  The lesson is that the vast covert investigative powers
accruing to federal agencies are ripe for exploitation.  All presidents
violate the rights of the citizenry.  Only constant vigilance can
safeguard our most basic civil liberties.  The sole moral high ground
here belongs to those who struggle to maintain our fundamental
democratic rights.  We ought not grant that ground to anyone else.

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