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From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Subject: Resisting Spying & Attacks on Environmental Groups
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                  THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ELECTRONIC FORUM
    Networking the National Lawyers Guild Civil Liberties Committee
                 Chip Berlet - SYSOP (System Operator)
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                            617-221-5815

Resisting Spying & Attacks on Environmental Groups
by Chip Berlet

     Recent events indicate the environmental movement is being 
subjected to obvious surveillance, intimidation, anonymous 
letters, phony leaflets, telephone threats, police over-reaction 
and brutality, dubious arrests, and other threatening actions 
unfamiliar to most environmental activists. Experienced 
organizers warn these techniques often create side effects such 
as false divisions, rivalry, paranoia, false accusations, 
internal strife, and overall stressful circumstances that divert 
energy and time from the real work at hand.

     The type of subtle and not-so-subtle harassment being 
experienced by the environmental movement may be new to eco-
activists, but to civil rights attorney Brian Spears and other 
advocates for civil and constitutional rights, these types of 
incidents strike an all-too-familiar chord. Spears observes that, 
"activists on Central American issues, Native American 
organizers, Black power advocates, and others dissidents have 
been subject to unconstitutional covert surveillance and 
disruption for many years." In fact when Spears attended the 
annual National Lawyers Guild (NLG) convention last summer in 
Austin, Texas, he found not only two workshops on the grassroots 
toxics movement, but also two workshops on repression and attacks 
on political activists.

     Brian Glick, an attorney who spoke at the NLG's political 
repression workshop in Austin, is the author of a security 
guidebook for activists titled "War at Home." Glick concludes 
that historically, "dissenting groups come under attack as they 
begin to seriously threaten the status quo." Since the 
environmental movement "threatens to meddle with people who 
control billions of dollars, it should be no surprise when they 
fight back," says Glick, "especially as corporate and government 
officials come to realize how dramatically environmentalists 
expect them to restructure their activities." 

     Glick says the bombing attack on the Greenpeace Rainbow 
Warrior in New Zealand presaged the current situation in the U.S. 
"Domestic covert action is a powerful deterrent to democratic 
discussion of public policy and effective organizing for social 
change," says Glick echoing a number of civil liberties activists 
interviewed for this article. "We need to take security seriously 
without being distracted from our main goals", says Glick, "and 
one way is to educate ourselves about what has happened in the 
past." Glick and other authors and academics who have studied 
government intelligence abuse and political repression frequently 
find people are skeptical that human rights violations can happen 
in the United States. "We don't like to face this aspect of our 
society," agrees Spears, "but its part of the historical record."

Assorted Sordid Pasts

     Most documented information about government harassment of 
social change activists came to light in the 1970's following a 
series of Congressional hearings which took a critical look at 
the FBI, CIA, military intellignce, federal agencies and the 

private security industry. The most sensational revelations 
revolved around the FBI's Counterintelligence Program or 
COINTELPRO in Bureau jargon. In its final report, the Senate 
Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, often called the 
Church Committee, concluded:

     "COINTELPRO [was] a series of covert action programs 
directed against domestic groups....Many of the techniques used 
would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the 
targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO 
went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated 
vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of 
First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory 
that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the 
propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national 
security and deter violence."

     The COINTELPRO operations targetted political groups calling 
for social change, including civil rights and antiwar activists, 
civil liberties advocates, radicals, feminists, even food co-ops 
and health clinics. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was a major 
target in a campaign that included anonymous threatening letters 
and attempts to scare away his funders. In one ten year period 
starting in 1966, the FBI employed over 5,000 secret informers in 
Chicago alone.

     According to Glick, a review of the 2,370 officially 
approved COINTELPRO operations admitted to the Senate 
Intelligence Committee shows four main techniques: infiltration, 
psychological warfare from the outside, harassment through the 
legal system, and extralegal force and violence. In the latter 
category falls the sinister collaboration between the FBI and 
right-wing vigilante groups. For instance, in Chicago the FBI and 
local police worked with the Legion of Justice, a rightist group 
that burglarized offices of antiwar activists. In San Diego the 
FBI hid the weapon used by a Secret Army Organization sniper in a 
shooting incident directed at a local activist professor which 
resulted in a woman being injured by a stray bullet.

     The revelations of the Church Committee, the Watergate 
scandal and other [exposes] led to the passage of some valuable 
but limited reforms that briefly curtailed the abuses of the 
intelligence agencies. But along with the election of Ronald 
Reagan to the Presidency came a concerted and successful attempt 
by the intelligence agencies to abolish the reforms which had 
restrained them during the late 1970's. The early 1980's also saw 
tremendous growth in the private security industry coupled with 
an Executive Order signed by President Reagan authorizing the 
contracting of intelligence investigations to private firms 
outside the reach of Congressional oversight and laws protecting 
privacy.

     The FBI and other agencies also redefined the terms 
"terrorism" and "foreign intelligence" to reflect a broad and 
self-serving interpretation; and then argued their investigations 
into social change groups met the terms of specific legal 
language allowing the FBI greater investigative latitude in 
probes involving political violence and foreign spying. The 
result was that by 1983, FBI agents and private security 
specialists had launched broad intrusions into the lives of 
ordinary citizens engaged in otherwise legal activities.

     Ross Gelbspan is the author of a forthcoming book on the 
FBI's campaign from 1981 to 1985 against groups critical of U.S. 
policy in Central America. Gelbspan says "While the FBI conducts 
legitimate criminal investigations, its carrying out of 
unauthorized politically-motivated police activity is more than 
just history." For proof, Gelbspan (a veteran reporter for the 
Boston Globe who helped pen a Pulitzer Prize winning 
investigative series) points to documents obtained under the 
federal Freedom of Information Act, lawsuits, and Congressional 
hearings which show that in an FBI probe of the Committee in 
Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), "the FBI took 
at face value allegations by right-wing security specialists that 
members of (CISPES) were terrorists or foreign agents." 

     The FBI probe of CISPES moved beyond surveillance to attacks 
on CISPES, its members and allies. Thousands of citiens were 
referenced in secret dossiers. The FBI also used the services of 
right-wing sleuths including a network of conservative campus 
activists who attended meetings and then submitted reports to the 
FBI. "The CISPES probe by the FBI was not an aberration by a 
handful of field agents," says Gelbspan refuting widely published 
reports. "It was clearly approved at the highest levels of the 
Bureau and was apprently sanctioned by the NSC and the White 
House."

     "Looking at the CISPES investigation in light of other 
political investigations dating back to the 1950's, one gets the 
distinct impression that the FBI sees its mandate as neutralizing 
or disabling every political movement that has the potential for 
bringing about significant changes in the American political 
system," argues Gelbspan. 

     Kit Gage, the Washington representative of the National 
Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL) agrees with 
Gelbspan. "We know first hand the kind of havoc the FBI can wreak 
on a group exercising its First Amendment rights," says Gage who 
has leafed through FBI files recording "38 years of surveillance 
on NCARL and its predecessors which produced 130,000 pages of 
files but not one criminal conviction." What is well documented 
"is an incredible amount of harassment and disruption of our 
organization," Gage charges. "Since the FBI seems unable to 
regulate itself," says Gage, "NCARL is currently seeking legal 
remedies in the form of legislation that would limit FBI 
investigations solely to criminal activity." Hundreds of law 
school professors have endorsed NCARL's proposed legislation.

     Meanwhile, surveillance and disruption continue to hamstring 
activists. At the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, 
the Movement Support Network (MSN) maintains a list of suspicious 
incidents called in by groups around the country. According to 
MSN coordinator Jinsoo Kim, "since 1984 there have been over 300 
suspicious incidents including 150 unexplained break-ins" where 
usually files are rifled but expensive office equipment not 
stolen. Suspicions point to an ad-hoc alliance of FBI agents and 
informants, other government investigators, far right vigilantes, 
and private security sleuths who trade information and justify 
their actions in the name of national security and fighting 
terrorism.

     The zealousness of these snoops can lead them to break the 
law in pursuit of their quarry. Earth First activist Dave Foreman 
says his unfortunately intimate knowledge of FBI informant-
provocateurs leads him to not rule out the possibility that the 
California bombing incident was the result of a covert 
operation....a charge that reflects an accurate historical 
awareness of how far some agents are willing to go in an attempt 
to trap their target.

     An example of this involved Connecticut animal rights 
activist Fran Trutt, charged with attempting to plant a bomb she 
says was meant to scare an offical of the U.S. Surgical 
Corporation which uses animals for medical tests and sales 
demonstrations. Her accomplices, not charged with any crime, 
turned out to be private security agents hired by U.S. Surgical. 
Trutt's attorney, John Williams, says there is "absolutely no 
question that Trutt was enticed" into considering the bombing by 
agents from Perceptions International." Furthermore, several 
months prior to the attempted bombing, according to Williams "the 
entire situation was reviewed at a meeting that included 
representatives of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms, the Connecticut States Attorney's office, the security 
director of U.S. Surgical and at least one representative of 
Perceptions International...and the topic of the meeting was Fran 
Trutt."

     According to Williams, it was the agents of Perceptions 
International, working for U.S. Surgical but posing as Trutt's 
friends, who suggested the bombing, paid for the purchase of the 
pipe bomb, and drove her to the U.S. Surgical parking lot. When 
Trutt had second thoughts while on her way to the parking lot, 
she called a trusted friend, and was encouraged to proceed--that 
"friend", too, was a private undercover agent from Perceptions 
International. Although Trutt was clearly set up, under 
Connecticut law she needed to show substantial state involvement 
to use entrapment as a defense, a problematic tactic given the 
available evidence. Trutt reluntantly accepted a plea bargain and 
will serve a short prison term rather than risk a lengthy 
sentence on more serious charges.

     One person troubled by the Trutt case is Gary T. Marx, a 
sociology professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 
author of "Undercover: Police Surveillance in America." Marx says 
serious ethical problems can arise "When police must depend on 
persons whose professional lives routinely involve deceit and 
concealment and who have a motive to lie." Informants "often have 
strong incentives to see that others break the law," says Marx, 
who worries that our democratic values are being threatened by 
the increased use of technologically sophisticated forms of 
electronic surveillance and computerized dossier-keeping.

What To Do!

     Jinsoo Kim of the Movement Support Network urges that 
environmental activists pick up some simple security 
consciousness and briefly study the history of political 
repression against dissent in America. "There has been a whole 
generation of activists since the revelations about the FBI 
COINTELPRO program and Watergate," says Kim. "Something that 
happened fifteen, or even five years ago, its as if it never 
happened. We need to teach the lessons learned by previous 
movements about how to empower ourselves and fight back without 
losing sight of our political goals." Kim urges people to contact 
her at MSN if they want printed information on repression and 
helpful security tips, have an incident to report, or need 
advice. 

     Sheila O'Donnell, a progressive private eye for twenty years 
who specializes in political cases, suggests environmentalists 
need to be very suspicious of attempts to define individuals or 
groups in a way that isolates them. "Smear campaigns often are a 
part of disruption operations, so charges of eco-terrorism and 
allegations of violence should be carefully considered on the 
basis of documented facts, not lurid headlines," says O'Donnell. 
"And if people use different techniques, that's OK," adds Brian 
Glick, "there is a place for lobbying, grassroots organizing, 

education, and militant action...they reinforce each other." 
Susan B. Jordan, lawyer for two Earth First! activists whose car 
was bombed, points out that her clients "were easy people to whip 
up public opinion against," because of their reputation for 
militancy.

     Attorney John Williams offers this advice based on the Trutt 
Case and 20 years of defending political activists: "Assume the 
other side is listening, consider everything you do as if it will 
be played back in a courtroom or appear on the front page of the 
local newspaper. If you don't act this way, you are very foolish, 
and could not only go down the tubes, but take your friends and 
your movement with you. Fran Trutt's problem was that this never 
occured her. She was literally seduced. It has been a hard lesson 
for her to learn"

      Sheila O'Donnell advises that talking to the FBI or other 
investigators without the advice or presence of an attorney is 
not a good idea. "It's hard for some people to understand this," 
conceeds O'Donnell, "But it simply isn't an issue of social 
courtesy. Individual FBI agents or other investigators might be 
friendly and assure you they don't think you or your friends are 
criminals or terrorists, but they pass along the information they 
glean from you to faceless bureaucracies with a history of 
attacking activists and derailing their movements. You never know 
what seemingly-harmless bit of information might get you or a 
friend in trouble," insists O'Donnell, "an attorney will protect 
your rights, not the FBI."

     O'Donnell recommends all political activists use the "buddy 
system" where group members share phone numbers and a pledge to 
call each other if anything suspicious or threatening happens, no 
matter how seemingly silly or trivial. "By talking with friends 
about strange events, the events lose their sinister aspect, and 
you gain courage by sharing your fears," says O'Donnell. "I know 
talking about security makes some people nervous," she admits. 
"But other political movements have adopted simple common sense 
attitudes about security and still reached their political 
goals." O'Donnell says when groups are harassed it is important 
to "promote caring working relationships within the membership 
and keep a healthy sense of skepticism and humor." One thing her 
investigations have shown clearly, says O'Donnell, "is that it is 
not only true that democracy is worth fighting for...but you also 
have to fight for it just to keep it alive." 


Resources

Movement Support Network
666 Broadway
New York, NY 10012
212-614-6422

National Committee Against Repressive Legislation
236 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
Suite 406
Washington, D.C. 20002
202-543-7659

