New 'NY Times' Shocker: FBI Spied on Activist Groups

By: E&P Staff Following up on its revelations about a National Security Agency domestic spy program approved by President Bush, The New York Times reports Tuesday that counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation "have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show."

The reporter, Eric Lichtblau, was also co-author of last week's spy bombshell, with James Risen.

Documents were provided to The New York Times over the past week as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more than a year, it said, the ACLU has sought information in F.B.I. files on about 150 protest and social groups that it says may have been improperly monitored.

"One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a Vegan Community Project," the Times reveals. " Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's 'semi-communistic ideology.' A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"A.C.L.U officials said the latest batch of documents released by the F.B.I. indicated the agency's interest in a broader array of activist and protest groups than they had previously thought," Lichtblau writes. "In light of other recent disclosures about domestic surveillance activities by the National Security Agency and military intelligence units, the A.C.L.U. said the documents reflected a pattern of overreaching by the Bush administration.

"'It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to N.S.A. to the F.B.I., to engage in spying on Americans," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

"'You look at these documents," Ms. Beeson said, "and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology."