Osama Bin Bunny
Don't be marching for peace or poverty relief, and don't be one of the PETA nitwits! Democracy Now's Amy Goodman talks to three reps from domestic groups discovered to have been under FBI counterterrorism surveillance, Jeff Kerr, General Counsel and Director of Corporate Affairs of PETA, Matt Daloisio of the New York Catholic Worker; and John Passacantando, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA:
JOHN PASSACANTANDO: ...We know that the F.B.I., since January 1, 2000, gathered approximately 2,400 pages of information on Greenpeace. This is everything from copies of web pages to reports by corporate-funded think tanks doing analysis of Greenpeace; it's clippings; it's write ups of protests, peaceful protests that we have engaged in; and that's about half of it. The other half of it has been redacted. It's blanked-out pages. So you can't tell if there's eavesdropping. You cannot tell if there's intercepted email traffic. You simply can’t tell; you get multiple boxes of photocopied paper, and only half of them actually have the print still on them.AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Kerr, you're with PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We have been looking at documents that are almost fully redacted, except for the name of PETA.
JEFF KERR: Good morning, Amy. Yes, you're right. What the documents show, as far as we can tell, is a gross abuse of power and a waste of resources, as the F.B.I. investigates and infiltrates an organization that it admits in these documents is a lawful charity engaged in First Amendment-protected free speech activity. It's outrageous, and this kind of secret spying has got to stop.
AMY GOODMAN: What exactly do you understand the F.B.I. has been doing in your case?
JEFF KERR: Well, to the extent we can glean it from the documents, we know they're surveilling speeches on college campuses. We know they have gone to some of our protests on public sidewalks, where people are laying naked in a cage to protest cruelty in the fur trade, and we know that they have harassed and questioned our employees on roadsides, and we know they have gone to their homes and businesses to interview them. There's really just such a wasteful type of threat that comes through this, and one indication in one of the documents, Amy, there's reference made where they accuse us of being actively involved in a campaign against a company that we had protested six years before that and hadn't done anything previously. You know, the American people know the difference between a terrorist and somebody in a chicken suit handing out a leaflet against KFC's practices. But the F.B.I. apparently doesn't seem to know that.
AMY GOODMAN: Matt Daloisio, you're with the New York Catholic Worker. What have you read in the documents?
MATT DALOISIO: From the documents I’ve seen, it looks like the F.B.I. was concerned with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and their work around Vandenberg Air Force Base and National Missile Defense. Mostly, it seems just sad that the F.B.I. would use resources to investigate a group that's always open about what we do and take responsibility for what we do and is really based in a faith that believes in the God-given dignity of every human being.
AMY GOODMAN: The documents refer to the Catholic Worker’s semi-communist ideology.
MATT DALOISIO: Yes, I guess if we are against war and working with people who are poor, that makes us semi-communistic.
I don't know why you're surprised. PETA and Greenpeace have expressed sympathy for and probably have ties to members of domestic terrorist groups like Animal Liberation Front.
nash at December 22, 2005 7:10 AM
"we know they're surveilling speeches on college campuses"
Anal-Retentive Quip of the Day:
There is no such word as "surveil." You can spy, you can investigate, you can conduct surveillance, but you cannot surveil. Don't even try.
Lena "Virgin Birth" Cuisina at December 22, 2005 10:41 AM
She LIVES!!!
Aiiieeeeeeeee!
Crid at December 22, 2005 11:29 AM
When you insist that government agencies provide for your security, you'd better be sure you want it their way.
Now - try to figure out how to act to get things under control!
Radwaste at December 22, 2005 12:27 PM
Merry Christmas, Crid. xx00
Lena "Christ's Afterbirth" Cuisina at December 22, 2005 2:25 PM
No, Happy Holidays!
Crid "Virgin Death" at December 22, 2005 3:34 PM
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