Here's What I Wrote

For the March issue of the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter newsletter ...

No reason to be paranoid but the Federal Government is watching and listening. In the last several months we have learned that the Pentagon is monitoring anti-war groups, the National Security Agency is wiretapping Americans without warrants and the FBI is paying informants to infiltrate activist groups.

It would be incredibly surprising if the National Lawyers Guild wasn’t on some of these watch lists. The NLG was labeled “subversive” by the Justice Department during the 1950’s McCarthy era. The House Committee on Un-American Activities even issued a mostly hyperbolic “Report on the National Lawyers Guild” that recommended barring members from federal employment.

Guild members were later integral to the struggle against COINTELPRO, defending its targets and exposing the infiltration and disruptive tactics of the FBI and CIA. The Guild was even a COINTELPRO target itself. In general, the NLG has always been at the forefront of the fight against the fiercest attacks on civil liberties. This has often meant that the Guild itself has been a frequent target of repression.
Of course, even if the NSA is monitoring phone calls to and from our office and, even if the gentlemen who frequently come to our office to repair our heater are actually FBI agents, I don’t believe we have anything to hide so there isn’t much to worry about, right? In a perfect world perhaps, but under present circumstances we still face great risks because of our principles.

Sometimes previously legal activities are deemed suddenly illegal as right-wing politicians seek to further suppress political dissent. So, 10 years ago Lynne Stewart’s actions would have been viewed as merely those of a passionate advocate; but today she is judged a “terrorist” and may face prison time.

Ten years ago donating to certain Palestinian charities or Islamic human rights organizations was philanthropy; today it is considered material support for terrorism. Right-wing groups already describe a lot of NLG activities as support for “the enemy.” Sadly, right-wing groups, however nutty, have more credibility today than they did 10 years ago.

Even if you have nothing to hide, law enforcement or prosecutors can quite often simply make something up. Thousands of criminal defendants accused of petty crimes in state courts all across the country face this reality every day. Our 911 Committee frequently discusses how to better inform targeted communities of this risk. People often agree to speak with agents without an attorney present because they know they’ve done nothing wrong. They don’t realize that their words can be twisted and used against them or their loved ones.

When prosecutors and law enforcement can’t successfully railroad defendants with false testimony or bogus evidence, they may be able to convince a partisan judge or jury to convict by relying on fear or prejudice. Lynne Stewart’s case is a good example: the judge allowed federal prosecutors to prejudice the jury by showing a video of Osama Bin Laden in the courtroom.

The Feds can also harm or destroy individuals or organizations in the court of public opinion. Last year the media was told that a major terrorist cell had been discovered in Lodi but, when the indictments were issued, there were no terrorist charges at all.

If the FBI and other agencies are really trying to protect us from terrorism, why would they spend so much time on individuals and organizations who really pose no actual terrorist threat? In part it’s because other kinds of threats are involved: political, social, and religious for example. But law enforcement often has no idea how to keep us safe.

Hollywood would have us believe that federal law enforcement is well-organized, highly advanced and well-intentioned. Hollywood produces a lot of fiction. I don’t mean to imply that the technology and intelligence of the FBI and other federal agencies shouldn’t cause us great fear, but their sheer power is far more frightening than their often sloppy and haphazard work. Despite their fumbling, they still execute their plans with lethal means and prosecute activists on the shakiest of grounds. The nature of prosecutorial investigations is to win convictions (or worse) at almost any cost. The Bill of Rights is just a nuisance in this process.

So there is a reason that the NLG is almost always in the “dog house” with federal law enforcement. Our politics is antithetical to theirs and our work almost always makes their job harder. But our members have always known we were doing the right thing, and with time we’ve been vindicated. The McCarthy hysteria of the 1950’s is now widely condemned as is COINTELPRO. With time and struggle, the agents scrutinizing this column for a coded message to our followers in Egypt will be but washed up characters from a shameful piece of American history.

Our chapter is presently working in coalition with several other organizations to share information about FBI questioning and surveillance and to develop Freedom of Information Act requests, know your rights information as well as political and legal responses. We are also gathering information about politically-motivated grand juries – a tool that federal prosecutors are using with much greater frequency in just the last year.