Anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-government protestors are being targeted, says the ACLU of Georgia ... Including vegetarians protesting outside a meat packing plant!
quote:ACLU Releases Government (surveillance)Photos WXIA TV, Atlanta Friday 27 January 2006
The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.
Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said.
For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.
An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.
"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday.
The government file lists anti-war protesters in Atlanta as threats, the ACLU said. The ACLU of Georgia accuses the Bush administration of labeling those who disagree with its policy as disloyal Americans.
"We believe that spying on American citizens for no good reason is fundamentally un-American, that it's not the place of the government or the best use of resources to spy on its own citizens and we want it to stop. We want the spies in our government to pack their bags, close up their notebooks, take their cameras home and not engage in the spying anymore," Gerald Weber of the ACLU of Georgia said during a news conference.
The arrest sounds unconstitutional. The photographing does not, assuming everyone was in public.
There is no constitutional bar to photographing people in a public place.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
In fairness, animal rights people have been known to blow stuff up. And Animal Rights people and Vegitarians who protest people who work for a living have a large amount of cross over.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The photographing doesn't sound unconstitutional, but there are some places where it would be illegal, at least for some law enforcement groups (in the 70s many places passed laws restricting the surveillance abilities of police departments).
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
I think the real point here goes beyond the instant case, the arrest of these particular people at this particular demonstration.
I think the real point is that, more and more, the Bush administration is acting like it thinks anyone who disagrees with it in any way, to any degree, and on any subject, is a potential terrorist. Which would be a laughable belief if it didn't have such frightening implications for freedom of expression and other constitutional guarantees.
Edited for clearer word choice.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
You have to admit. Vegetarians are pretty shady characters.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Pixiest, why do you say that they were protesting people who work for a living? It says they were protesting eating meat, and they did it outside a honeybaked ham store. I would think that the protest would be aimed more at the customers than the employees.
Regardless, though, almost everyone works for a living. Your word choice seems intentionally inflammatory, as if to suggest that the protesters are rich, privileged brats who don't have to support themselves or people living off the welfare system. Which I suppose might be the case, but we've seen nothing to indicate it. It is much more likely that they, also, work for a living, and are really just protesting people eating meat, like the article said.
(Every HoneyBaked Ham store I've ever seen has been in a strip mall, where the employees park in back and go in a seperate, employee entrance. If that's the case, the workers wouldn't even have to cross the picketline to get to their jobs, only the customers would.)
Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: In fairness, animal rights people have been known to blow stuff up. And Animal Rights people and Vegitarians who protest people who work for a living have a large amount of cross over.
Right wing conservatives have been known to "blow stuff up", too. I wonder if NRA members are being targeted for observation. There is a lot of crossover between people who believe strongly in the right to bear arms and those who hoard stockpiles of weapons. I don't think Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols were vegetarians or animal rights activists.
And what protests don't involve picketing a place where people work for a living? Are people on strike wrong when they picket? What about people who picket abortion clinics? People who picket the White House? There are definitely folks who work at all those places.
I would like to see some linkage please supporting your assumption that vegetarians and animal rights activists have a lot of crosssover when it comes to "blowing stuff up".
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
What is our constitution for, if the government can do this? This sort of thing has to stop!
The thing is, we lose the war on terrorism by default if we give up our free society to fight them. The free society is presumably the very thing we're fighting for! It's crazy!
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
::takes names::
Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
::pickets Icky:: ::takes down Icky's tag number::
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
I don't see anything wrong with taking pictures of people in public...though if he really did arrest her for writing down is licence plate #, that is wrong(he said she was acting hostile and such) Though, all we have on that is her word vs the cops word...and typically activists tend to be less than truthful when it comes to that sort of thing (that is true of both conservative and liberal activists).
Of course, if I saw a vegitarian group protesting a place that sold meat, it would make me want to go buy something...but I'm just weird like that Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I don't know, Lupus...extreme activists do have a tendancy to distort and even willfully deceive to advance their cause, but then again law-enforcement has frequently been less than truthful in its dealings with such groups in the past, too.
Unless she threatened the officer with harm, I don't see how it could possibly be legal or justified to arrest him. I can act "hostile" to a cop all I want, and it's not illegal, nor will I be arrested...although it would be stupid because then the cop would have a reason to look for something to bust me with.
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