Fenian Notes

The problem with many in this category is they have a conscience on certain issues which if not in line with official US policy are categorised as suspect.

Specifically, Muslim and “Irish extremist groups” have been designated as targets by the FBI, the US political police force.

The reason groups are targets, officially, is the US government will claim they are aiding and abetting overseas terrorists. This is purely a political decision and need not be based on any concrete evidence, nor is it necessary for the government to show cause before ordering an investigation. Either the investigation is initiated by the US or at the request of a friendly government.

Recently, the FBI without any specific evidence have accused a US Muslim of sending money to overseas terrorists in Hamas so it can buy weapons. They have seized this man’s bank accounts and are trying to take his house — all without a criminal trial.

This is the first public use of a new law targeting the assets of alleged terrorism supporters which allows the government to seize an account which it alleges is used to assist terrorists.

Now, this is done during the investigative process without any evidence, only suspicion, allegations or constructive fictions made up by the FBI to harass and intimidate suspects/targets to discourage dissent and opposition to official dictated US policy.

The US Congress has passed new laws lumped together as “anti-terrorism laws” with enormous increases in funding for self-defined anti-terror activity. Officials under assurance of anonymity have set out the secret agenda to target 20 groups. To start with the main emphasis is on Muslims, the grand sweep includes anti-Treaty Irish groups, Puerto Rican, and Basque organisations.

People may be held on “secret evidence”, that is, none at all, because under these laws none needs to be produced to the accused targets.

People must realise their activities are to be minutely scrutinised by agents and written up as they want an end result to be. Fiction as fact permeates secret FBI files.

There is an excuse for vigilance by law enforcement authorities; however this is bordering on police state tactics. If there is concrete legitimate evidence of a plot then targets should receive all the rights and safeguards of ordinary suspects.

FBI files are loaded with rumours, half-truths, quarter-truths and pure lies and illogical conclusions lead to illogical investigations. The new laws permit any person with non-conforming or controversial views to be political targets of the FBI and others who do not have to show cause to the targets.

Secret Grand Juries in various US cities are investigating many groups and the FBI has significantly increased its applications for secret wiretaps under the excuse of combating terrorism. US officials maintain that more vigilance is warranted due to the expanding number of threats against the US and its allies.

CONSPIRACY-MOTIVATED

Civil libertarians and group activists maintain the FBI is using its burgeoning resources to persecute those who support unpopular causes. The expansion of the Agency’s authority has raised constitutional questions among legal scholars which deprive targets of due process of law and other basic rights which are fundamental to democracy.

The FBI is saying: “Trust us” to know when and when not to pursue legitimate causes. How ludicrous this is when recent history proves how abusive they have been in political cases, violating the law themselves.

The FBI has carte blanche on how to define what is “material support” for terrorists; the excuse for a holy war against activists. The broad laws passed to fight terrorism are supposed to protect the citizens of the US, but already the FBI has gone beyond its brief by investigating legal US groups which have charitable goals and speak out in support of the freedom of other people.

The new laws permit the FBI greater latitude in pursuit of “possible associates” of terrorists even when there is no evidence or even suspicion on specific offences.

Anyone, any target, falls into the arbitrary category of possible associate, which clearly shows the US government sanctions and encourages witch-hunts intended to place a chilling effect of legal activity and discourage dissent.

The US was founded on dissent and it is its very foundation, but power destroys principle when raw power seeks its own protection.

The FBI claims to be hunting down bad guys, but are men necessarily evil who follow the patriots who founded the US, the State Department has selectively made a list of organisations which it classifies as “terrorist” and should any individual or group send money to support that organisation, it is now a crime.

The US government now has the ability to use classified information to detain suspected terrorism supporters who try to enter the United States.

The American taxpayer should be put on notice that the counter terrorism budget has been doubled to $290 million since the mid-’90s. There are 2,700 FBI employees assigned to counter terrorism. Many US groups are being investigated for funding their overseas allies who provide humanitarian services. Many US Muslims support hospitals, schools and day-care centres for the poverty-stricken while the Irish support families of political prisoners. This is “terrorism”.

The FBI and the government generally has criminalised funding charity. These laws would have barred helping anti-apartheid ANC in the 1980s just as today they take aim at anti-Partition activists.

The FBI intimidates, harasses, breaks into buildings, physically abuses people and occasionally shoots people, but this is not criminal under these new laws.

Arabs and Irish people trying to enter the US, are subjected to a process where secret evidence is used against them and neither they nor their lawyers are permitted to examine, usually because there is no evidence. It’s a lie!

Attorneys representing those under investigation have elucidated the fact that the FBI has rushed through a court “national security” wiretaps which are allowed through a lower standard of evidence than regular wiretaps. Agents cite classified evidence as the basis for the bugging, but of course there is none and there is no requirement to produce any.

There is a special Justice Department court that has been set up to respond to imminent threats not to collect evidence. On the word of an agent, a wiretap can be placed on your phone. Only one wiretap has been refused in 20 years.

FBI and government officials state that most targets at present are Muslims, but Irish extremist groups’ suspects have been held on secret evidence.

In the case of Muslims, some groups have declared war on the US, so this prompts investigations. OK, maybe that justifies vigilance, but when did the Irish declare war on America?

Government spokesmen put out the qualifiers that most Irish and most Muslims are decent people, but in the national interests certain things must be done which are distasteful.

The big picture involves law enforcement activity that inevitably is injurious to innocent people, which is a burden that must be borne.

PENALISING SUSPECTS

One Muslim denied any link to terrorism, but the FBI branded him as a high level operative so they set out to destroy his business so that no money will be created to be sent to “terrorists”.

The target has been tailed everywhere and agents, using intimidation to question people the target meets, have gotten them to set out false statements. As a result, the government seized his assets, his home, and put his family on the streets. These are the defenders of freedom and family values.

Usually, the way the system works is a suspect is charged and criminally prosecuted. This is the democratic way, not the new American way.

Let us reflect to another historic FBI holy war against activists. In previous FBI investigations of domestic groups suspected of improper activities have been disastrous as many officials now acknowledge.

In the 1960s there was the exercise called COINTELPRO, an FBI effort to target civil rights groups with dirty-tricks campaigns. In the 1980s, there was CISPES, an investigation of liberals and communists. The FBI’s record is scary because they act more the criminals than those they pursue.

All FBI probes are witch-hunts needed to justify their existence which is to target politicals, and freedom fighters without guns. They create situations of criminal overtones that they use to define criminal conspiracy.

Many civil libertarians claim FBI probes of political groups show the Agency equates anti-American rhetoric with “terrorism”. The FBI claims they have secret evidence that such groups encourages subversive activity abroad; much of the “subversion” is taking a stand against tyrannical governments which are useful to the US, so their brutality is simply ignored.

The FBI has a certain bias which they encourage in friendly media sources utilised as propaganda tools to create a false distorted image for the general population to perceive.

Many FBI documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal an effort to ascribe illicit motives to political activities protected by the First Amendment.

At humanitarian fundraisers for the families of political prisoners, FBI “plants” discern a mood that the group displayed a potential for hostility against the British. Irish Republican music was “too militaristic”.

For Arabs and Irish immigrants, the FBI’s use of secret evidence in deportation cases has been abusive. Many seeking political asylum are not believed and they are held in prison until they agree to go back.

The FBI acknowledge past abuses offering these as an excuse for what they now say are sure-handed investigations. This is a ruse because abusive laws now allow them to do legally what was illegal in the past.

Guilt by association is now acceptable to hold someone even when targets renounce violence and are not suspected of crimes. Possession of literature of a proscribed group is enough to hold someone and to make lives miserable.

Privacy in one’s life is a passing freedom and now the political police are not allowing freedom of thought. What all the new laws amount to is persecution of innocent people who dare hold certain views.

If there is concrete evidence of a crime, or evidence of someone engaging in illegal activity then this should be made public because the American people have a right to know. The US political police have been given the means equated with police states once highly criticised that if made public would be roundly condemned.

The American people have a right to know what is being done in their name. Surely, if they were apprised that whole families are being ruined, they would agitate for it to stop.

I am sure there are right-minded Americans still left who admire those who support freedom fighters in other countries; but you will not find them at White House receptions.

Some day America will have to free itself from its “protectors” who believe anything goes and deny basic rights to those who need them.

For one to have freedom is not worth the price to deny it to others. There is a terrible pall over the “Land of the Free” that denies dissidents in Ireland that which American dissidents established as a right — to speak out on any subject.

If you are questioned by the FBI, their intent is to get someone, so politely remain silent. If hostility is shown you, demand a lawyer.
— Peadar Mac Fhínín