Supressing Dissent at Drake

The four anti-war activists were set to appear before a Grand Jury when they received word that the subpoenas had been withdrawn by the Justice Department. Brian Terrell told a crowd of about 100 cheering people outside the federal courthouse: “We made them want to stop and we have to make sure they never want to do this again.” 

“If it was just a trespassing investigation, why seek the membership records of the National Lawyers Guild,” asked Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa ACLU. “If this was an attempt to chill protests through the aggressive policing of a run-of-the-mill crime, we’ve got a serious problem in America.”  

Al Overbaugh, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office, told the AP that the investigation was not over, but he didn’t issue any further comment.  Bruce Nestor, a Minneapolis attorney and past president of NLG who worked on the case, said that the subpoenas were withdrawn because of the “tremendous response from across the political spectrum condemning the use of the grand jury.” 

I t’s really hard to tell what this means in a broader or policy sense for the Department of Justice,” Bruce Nestor said. “Clearly the FBI memo reported by the New York Times in October directed the joint terrorism task forces to compile information about political protesters. The actions of the U.S. attorney’s office in Iowa appear to be consistent with the directive in that memo. Whether that means that the Department of Justice intends to expand the use of the grand jury to investigate political protest movements is unclear. In this instance they clearly used the grand jury for that purpose.” 

Whether or not the convening of the grand jury was a DOJ trial balloon or the actions of an overzealous U.S. attorney in Iowa, Nestor believes it is part of “a pattern of events taking place across the country.” During the past year, police agencies across the country have not only been gathering information, but also have used strong- armed tactics against peaceful political demonstrators. In early April 2003, acting on warnings from the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC), the Oakland, California police department indiscriminately fired wooden slugs at and injured several non-violent anti-war protesters—and several non-protesting Port workers as well—who were demonstrating at the Port of Oakland. 

In Atlanta, the city’s police department “routinely places under surveillance anti-war protesters and others exercising their free-speech rights to demonstrate,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In Los Angeles, the police department maintains files on anti-war protesters it deems capable of “a significant disruption of the public order.” In Miami, the sight of the recent police riot during the November demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, “police routinely videotape demonstrators and infiltrate rallies with plainclothes officers,” Detective Joey Giordano of the Miami-Dade Police Department, told the Journal-Constitution . 

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Paul Weyrich, recognized as one of the “founding fathers” of the Christian Right, suggested that either Tom Ridge, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, or Congress, launch a full-scale investigation behind the funding sources of what he termed “neo-Communist” groups organizing the anti-war movement. While no full-blown congressional ly-sanctioned investigation of the peace movement has been initiated, local police departments, in cooperation with regional FBI offices, have established anti-war investi- gative units. 

“This Administration is using all sorts of tactics to marginalize dissenters,” NLG’s Avery pointed out. “They’ve used pre-emptive strikes, police violence, and have resorted to penning off demonstrators in so-called free speech zones, so that when the president travels around the country people can’t get within several blocks of him.” At this time, Avery said he wasn’t aware of other cases involving the convening of grand juries to go after dissenters.  

The ACLU wrote in a February 10 press release, “The Justice Department’s decision to quash the [Iowa] subpoenas comes on the heels of reports…that U.S. Army Intelligence contacted organizers of a seminar at the University of Texas Law School at Austin on sexism and Islam.” 

Local NLG members were asked by law enforcement officials to provide a list of conference attendees because persons under investigation had been present. The NLG is concerned that the University of Texas could be next in line for a Justice Department fishing expedition.