Your Taxes at Work

Today NPR had a story on the Maryland State Police infiltrating and spying on citizens whom they "suspected of terrorism." This was in 2005 and 2006, well after September 11. Now the MSP is sending letters to 53 of these people, letting them know it happened and that the files are going to be destroyed because they shouldn't have been created in the first place.

The young man who is the focus of the NPR story works for a nonprofit that promotes clean energy. He was flabbergasted and, in fact, outraged when he received the letter, and notes in the story that no one even apologized in it.

Democracy Now! had the story first, back in July, it turns out. The MPS was surveilling members of peace organizations and anti-death-penalty groups. Amy Goodman interviewed an activist named Max Obuszewski, who said:

They actually came to one of our [Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration] rallies where we had hibakusha [victims of the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki] speaking. The sad thing about all of this, constantly in these documents the agents indicate that we were doing nonviolent work, that we were doing First Amendment work, but they kept repeating, “We think that this investigation should continue.” They logged in 288 hours.

Which reminds me of a story I heard on Bill Moyers' show back in 2004 -- that the FBI was surveilling the American Friends Service Committee in Colorado on suspicion of terrorism. That's "Friends" as in Quakers -- you know -- the nonviolent people who are always conscientious objectors in wartime. (Here's a link from the ACLU on the 2004 surveillance.)

This is a sick system we have, that surveils its citizens. I suppose Michele Bachmann would think I am anti-American for saying that.