Don’t Worry, DHS Is Just Protecting Your Civil Liberties, Honest

The Occupy protests: whether you were involved, sympathetic, dismissive, or even openly bothered by the shrillness of it all, the fact remains that they were peaceful protests and a legitimate exercise of first amendment rights. Whether or not you’ve found a way to rationalize the out-sized use of police force, here’s a story that should concern you.

We already knew that F.B.I. counterterrorism  officials conducted surveillance of the protesters, and today we learn they weren’t alone.  The New York Times reports that the 78 ‘fusion centers’ around the country — created in the wake of 9/11, operated by state and local officials, and funded by Homeland Security for the purpose of thwarting future national security threats — have actually proved of little aid to that cause, and have instead turned their sights on domestic political groups.

Peter Swire, a law and ethics professor at Georgia Tech who recently served on President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, said that as the government concentrated on fighting terrorism, guidelines that had restricted the monitoring of political activity were relaxed. As a result, he said, even minor offenses like trespassing “can be enough to trigger surveillance of political groups.”

Documents obtained by the Times show a disturbing amount of monitoring of not just the Occupy encampments, but of related protests, events and activities — even “‘yoga, faith & spirituality’ classes.” There is also evidence of coordination with “private sector partners” such as the International Council of Shopping Centers, which was apparently quite concerned about the  terrorist threat of protesters encouraging shoppers to cut up their credit cards or to even forgo holiday shopping entirely. (The humanity!)

While it does not appear that electronic surveillance of phone or email was used, authorities did make robust use of social media monitoring. And what did they do with all this data? They produced and distributed reports outlining upcoming (perfectly lawful) events and the names and information of prominent activists and supporters. Combined with an October 2011 Homeland Security bulletin which warned that the protests could become “disruptive or violent”, these reports can be expected to have only heightened the overly aggressive nature of local police response.

Over at Hullabaloo, Digby notes that one of the most active centers was the Boston Regional Intelligence Center which “issued scores of bulletin” covering everything from food drives to public appearances of Noam Chomsky, environmentalist Bill McKibben, and a Harvard Divinity professor.

They were very busy. Too busy, evidently, to monitor an actual terrorist threat. That’ll happen when you decide that peaceful political activity is a threat. There’s a lot of peaceful political activity out there. 

But hey, don’t worry about it:

Marsha Catron, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, said that the fusion centers play an important role in helping law enforcement and emergency responders understand how to protect people during large public events. She added that the centers are required to protect privacy and civil liberties.

Orwell would be proud (or rolling in his grave). The government monitoring of peaceful protesters (and yoga enthusiasts) exercising their first amendment rights is just part of protecting your civil liberties, folks!

It’s enough to make you batty, especially when we compare law enforcement’s treatment of groups on the left and right. Remember how many Tea Party rallies were peppered sprayed? Or maybe you, like Kevin Drum, recall the outrage from in 2009:

Maybe this is because lefties don’t complain enough. You may remember the hissy fit thrown by Fox News when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report suggesting that the election of a black president might spur recruitment among right-wing extremist groups and “even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.” As it turns out, that was a good call. But the specter of jack-booted Obama thugs smashing down the doors of earnest, heartland Republicans dominated the news cycle long enough for DHS to repudiate the report under pressure and eventually dissolve the team that had produced it.

As Drum suggests, mainstream lefties have just never bothered to push back on behalf of the far left the way the right gets each others’ backs. Maybe that’s why the U.S.  has such a long tradition of punching hippies.

By: Sandi Behrns

Sandi Behrns is a noted policy nerd, new media & web developer, and consultant to progressive organizations and campaigns. She is a senior contributor to Liberaland, and the Executive Editor of Progressive Congress News.