May 21, 2005

"This is going on your permanent record--" Stand up, make a difference, pay the price. Can we make it safer to take that step after bitching about something to actually doing something about it?

I've watched the trampling of civil liberties in the name of ___ especially since 9/11, but i still can't for the life of me figure out how they've been getting away with it with such a level of media collusion. Since the FOIA, i've wondered what my FBI file looked like. And i'm all for fighting the system by means of the system. Nothing like making someone eat their own logic.

posted by ethylene 18 years ago
  • A US issue but one of the decent things about the US (theoretically) is the right to protest as a basic right. Saying they want to spread liberty while-- well, hell, going to war with a downsized military-- well-- Okay, let me just say (as the hypocrisy breaks the highwater mark) the more that anyone wants to tell other people what to do while their own kids are running amok-- Clean up your own yard before you bitch at your neighbors, and stop beating your own kids for not liking your lack of parenting, Big Brother.
  • Ok, so back in 1990 when I was a college freshmen in South Dakota of all places, I helped to organize a group of fellow students (which in the end, a large contingent were local high school kids) that protested the proposed deployment of troops to Iraq. We called ourselves BHCP - - some cheezy hippish acronym that stood for Black Hills Coalition for Peace. Most of us were harmless punks involved in the local indie music scene. We did however manage to get quite a lot of local media attention. Our first protest was staged at Mount Rushmore. Our group of 15 students held a silent protest amongst the world's flags that line the parkway to the viewing area. A heated debate ensued with two Vietnam War vetrans - - who thought we should have been shot on the spot. The protest made the local papers, local television news coverage, and a small snippet in Newsweek magazine. The second protest was a bit more brazen - - we carried stuffed body bags on stretchers into the local office of Senator Larry Pressler, conveniently located in the local mall at that time. One month later, I quit school and moved a thousand miles away. Total time involved with the BHCP was about three weeks. The group basically disbanded a month later when the "Gulf War" broke out... Flash forward 12 years later. I discover that BHCP was classified as a "radical political organization" by the FBI, and surely my name is included on the list of all those deviants. my Great Grandma was so proud of me, she saved the clipping from the newspaper in her keepsake book
  • Can we make it safer to take that step after bitching about something to actually doing something about it? A few years ago, I would've said that as long as I'm not breaking a law they can't touch me (and just shrugged it off). Now I feel helpless. What would you propose we do?
  • I know, lets give them more subpoena powers.
  • use ta be anyone who wrote the white house got a file started because of the possible threat in terms of lone gunmen obviously they couldn't do that now with the sheer amount of email or are they? not in this white house that we know of that they know of that we know of that they know of or do they? the white house press room is still confined to those who are simply not a physical threat There are rules that are variations customized to the specifics of any locale But the basic premise of any rule that makes it "hard and fast" is the basis of any validity to that rule. Now, balancing "opposing" validities makes one prioritize them-- pesky checks and balances pesky rights and liberties perspectivawho? objectivawhat? answer quickly: Do you fear more for your personal safety or personal privacy? Do you care more about the long term or your short term? Do you worry more for how your immediate enviroment is or what it may become? now just ponder at your leisure: Are you actually worried about your personal safety or personal privacy? Why? Are they affecting each other? Why? Should anyone care about this other than you? everyone wants easy absolutes so badly, if anyone found them, we'd know about it or do we? cali: i'm not one to make up someone's mind, but why do you feel helpless? What can you do? And about which? You could balance the absolute extremes of any argument and just pick or you could weigh your concerns and figure out what matters most to bother with depending on how much it bothers you and why now if you're asking literally--
  • You can occasionally find interesting things while poking around on the FOIA website. For me, one of the most astounding discoveries was that the American Friends Service Committee (a social justice and antiwar organization founded and operated by the pacifist Quakers) had an FBI file that was 3,498 motherfucking pages long. By way of comparison, Al Capone's file was 2,397 pages. Check out their online "Reading Room.". You'll be surprised at the people that have FBI files. (Wilt Chamberlin? Ernest Hemingway? Van Halen???)
  • I guess what bothers me most is that the general public doesn't seem to care that their essential personal liberties are being eroded. I'm not going to blame the press because the stories are out there, I've read them and I get my news primarily from major newspapers. But since their readers don't care the stories disappear pretty quickly and the journalists move to something the public does want to read about. I don't know how to fight complacency. The tactics I would ordinarily use (demonstrations, PR, editorials) are proving ineffective.
  • I use FOIA a lot and I would recommend filing FOIA's (http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/14735 - link to an AxMe answer I provided with FOIA resources). Also read cryptome.org - John Young does his best to keep the feds honest.
  • ethylene's original link is no longer available, but this article has most of the same info, if I remember right: ACLU accuses FBI of 'spying' on activists