New U.S. Government's Raids in 'War on Dissent'

The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 a.m. Friday morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities.

Members of the FBI’s “Joint Terrorism Task Force” spent a few hours at each Minneapolis residence, seizing personal photographs and papers, computers and cell phones as well as serving Federal Grand Jury subpoenas on the various activists.

Obviously the scathing review of post 9-11 FBI “terrorism investigations” targeting various peace and social justice groups – issued just days earlier by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) – gave no pause to the FBI to reflect before continuing to do more of the same.

Nor did accompanying media revelations about the FBI having improperly conducted surveillances of an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh; the Catholic Worker peace magazine; a Quaker activist; the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh; members of the environmental group Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; and a small student group of anti-war activists in Iowa City, Iowa, who were targeted for nine months in 2008.

National news stories revealed that in one of the investigations, FBI Director Robert Mueller inadvertently provided a fabricated justification for the surveillance of an antiwar rally.

A Boston Globe article, “Red-Baiting, Circa 2002 – 2006,” reported last Wednesday:

“The Justice Department’s Inspector General report released this week pulled few punches in admonishing the FBI for targeting anti-war groups and advocacy organizations with no apparent justification, and for placing non-violent activists in those groups on terrorist watch lists.

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