User Submitted Blog Post: NLG to Protesters: You're not Paranoid

Protesters on the American left are sometimes stereotyped as crazy or paranoid, or accused of exaggerating, when they talk about how the government infiltrates peaceful groups or how they are attacked by police.

In August 2007 the National Lawyers Guild released a report debunking these stereotypes and detailing tactics used against law-abiding protesters by different agencies within the U. S. Government, from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to local police departments. The 90-page report, “Punishing Protest: Government Tactics that Suppress Free Speech,” provides a general overview of tactics used around the country, from infiltration and monitoring of peace groups to doctoring of evidence in court cases against protesters.

The report provides further evidence and expands upon the release of documents by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2006 which showed that the FBI had spied on peace groups that oppose the war in Iraq. The ACLU used Freedom of Information Act requests to show that the FBI had conducted surveillance of groups like the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice in Pittsburgh, PA.

Heidi Boghosian, author of “Punishing Protest” and executive director of the National Lawyers Guild,  explains that the right to dissent is fundamental to a healthy democracy. But, she says in her introduction, “This most fundamental democratic  right is under attack. The government has exploited public fears of terrorist violence,  aggravated by its own scare tactics, to enact changes to law enforcement and to  crack down on a host of forms of protest and free speech. Such government tactics  compel individuals into surrendering their rights.” She goes on to say, “One thing is certain: the government is targeting individuals based on political  affiliation with the same sense of urgency, and using the same tools, traditionally employed to target gangs and “terrorist groups,” and is doing so with a high rate of misinformation.”

The report is thorough and detailed, listing abuses and then citing several example for each. There are several types of abuses listed, from actual tactical maneuvers used by police in direct confrontation with demonstrators on the street (such as ramming or herding pedestrian demonstrators with bicycles, using tasers), intelligence gathering before political activity (such as infiltration and surveillance or raids on activist gathering places), as well as legal tactics used after activists have been arrested (elevated charges or bails or charging protesters with conspiracy).  Some of the specific tactics discussed are: arresting large groups protesters without probable cause, altering evidence, state and federal legislation that punishes actions more severely if motivated by political ideology, applying the “terrorist” label to activists, high bails for perceived leaders, the use of grand juries to gather evidence and intimidate activists, and threatening harsh prison sentences to activists to coerce them into informing on others. 

Boghosian discusses recent high-profile Green Scare and the Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty 7 (SHAC 7) cases, as well as the actions of police at many of the mass mobilizations in the last ten years, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle in 1999, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) protests in Miami in 2003, Republican and Democratic National conventions in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles,  and protests around the U. S. against the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The level of detail and documentation presented in “Punishing Protest” is impressive. For example, in exposing police tampering of evidence in cases following the arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, Boghosian cites the case of Dennis Kyne, the first of 1,806 arrestees to have his case brought to trial. Video tape of Kyne’s arrest provided by a volunteer group, I-Witness Video, showed that the video presented by the prosecution at his trial had been edited by police to omit evidence exonerating him. The Kyne case was not the only example of police tampering with evidence. Tapes provided by I-Witness Video were also used to expose police tampering in the cases of Josh Banno and Alexander Dunlop, and videos were used by the defense in approximately 400 of the 2004 RNC cases. 

Boghosian spends some time discussing the use of “less-lethal” force as crowd control, such as wooden or rubber bullets and pepper spray, highlighting cases of their abuse in Los Angeles and Oakland, CA. On April 7, 2003, police fired wooden bullets directly at the upper bodies and heads of demonstrators at the Port of Oakland, causing broken bones and other severe injuries, when “nothing had occurred to justify any force as demonstrators were attempting to comply with police orders.” The National Lawyers Guild has been highly critical of the use of such weapons by police departments.

Along with detailing and cataloguing abuses by various government agencies, Boghosian discusses how mainstream media has neglected to cover these abuses, focusing instead on protesters and relying “on stereotypes to describe protesters as ‘anarchists,’ ‘extremists,’ and ‘radicals.’” The implications of this, she says, are that average citizens are discouraged from participating in public debate, protest, and dissent.

For more information or to download a copy of the report, visit www.nationallawyersguild.org