Spying on a Sportswriter
Finally, at long last, I have something in common with Muhammad Ali.
No, I'm not the heavyweight champion of the world, but, like "the Greatest," I have been a target of state police surveillance for activities--in my case, against the death penalty--that were legal, nonviolent and, so I assumed, constitutionally protected.
In classified reports compiled by the Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security, I am "Dave Z." This nickname was given by an undercover agent known to us as "Lucy." She sat in our meetings of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, smiling and engaged, taking copious notes about actions deemed threatening by the former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich. Our seditious crimes, as Lucy reported, involved such acts as planning to set up a table at the local farmers market and writing up a petition. Adding a dash of farce to this outrage, she was monitoring us in the liberal enclave of Takoma Park, Maryland, a place known more for tie-dyeing than terrorism. Incidentally, current Governor Martin O'Malley says he opposes this kind of surveillance. He also opposes the death penalty. No word yet on whether he, too, is being spied upon.
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and the ACLU, we now know that "Lucy" was only one part of a vast, insidious project. The Maryland State Police's Department of Homeland Security devoted nearly 300 hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars in 2005 and 2006 to harassing people whose only crime was dissenting on the question of the war in Iraq and Maryland's use of cruel and unusual punishment.
My friend Mike Stark, a board member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, is at times referred to in Lucy's report as a "socialist" and an "anarchist." One can only assume this is the pathetic, time-honored tradition of reducing people to simple caricatures, all the better to garner Homeland Security grant money.
Veteran Baltimore peace activist Max Obuszewski, who has initiated a lawsuit against the Maryland State Police, has also consistently been shadowed by authories. His "primary crime" (their terminology) was entered into the homeland security database as "terrorism-anti govern[ment]." His "secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism-antiwar protestors." The database is known as the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). A respected peace organizer of many decades is identified as a terrorist, his actions listed as criminal, for doing nothing more than exercising his rights.
Former police superintendent Tim Hutchins defended these totalitarian practices in the Washington Post saying, "You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state." The article mentioned that Hutchins is now a federal defense contractor. I guess the global war on terror is just the gift that keeps on giving for the Hutchins family.
But "protect the general populace" from what? The surveillance continued even after it was determined that we were planning nothing more dangerous than carrying clipboards in a public place. Hutchins and the Ehrlich administration have undertaken an ugly violation of our civil rights, manipulating fears of terrorism to stamp out dissent.
This is COINTELPRO, pure and simple. Like the infamous counter-intelligence program whose heyday many assume was a relic the 1950s and 1960s, it's an effort to harass the innocent and breed paranoia, all for daring to question power.
Governor Ehrlich and Tim Hutchins follow in the footsteps of those who hounded Martin Luther King and facilitated the death of Malcolm X. They are not unlike those who drove the great actor, college football superstar and activist Paul Robeson toward the mental breakdown that claimed his life. When Robeson's files were opened under the Freedom of Information Act, the results were terrifying.
As his son, Paul Robeson Jr. has written, "From the files I received, it was obvious that there were agents who did nothing but follow every public event of my father, or even of me.... It took on a life of its own.... Over time, even for someone as powerful and with as many resources as my dad had...the attrition got to him."
Today Robeson is honored on a US postage stamp, but he moral midgets who destroyed him went unpunished. The ACLU, to its credit, is going on the offensive. As ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore on Thursday, "To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking. It's Kafkaesque."
Unfortunately for people like Governor Ehrlich, it is also "the most all-American of activities" to take the constitution and use it as their personal hand wipe.
As the great political philosopher Ice T once wrote, "Freedom of speech.... just watch what you say." Well, now is exactly the time not to watch what we say. I'm angry. I'm angry for my friends, who trusted "Lucy" and others. I'm angry that my tax dollars went to paying the salaries of people who spy and intimidate those exercising their rights. I'm angry that Barack Obama just voted to increase the power of the federal government to disrupt people's lives. And I'm angry enough that I'm joining a lawsuit initiated by the ACLU. "Homeland Security" picked on the wrong sports writer. They also picked on the wrong group of activists. We will not be silenced.
[People who want to express their outrage can contact the office Governor Martin O'Malley. We should demand a full investigation of the MSP, public release of all documents obtained through this illegal activity, and a specific commitment that the antideath penalty and anti-war movement will not be targeted. Call the office of the governor at 1-800-811-8336, or submit a comment online at http://www.governor.maryland.gov/mail]
42 Reader Comments | Add a comment
I'm not ashamed to admit I support the death penalty, but I am ashamed that I'm alive in a time where the government will spy on it's own people over political dissent, the very root of the Democracy they profess to hold so dear.
While I may not agree with Dave and his group on capital punishment I will see no voice silenced merely because they see things differantly. That something as Orwelllian like this would even be thought up, let alone carried out, sickens me.
Keep up the good fight Dave. I may be on the other side of the fence some days, but it's all the same lawn.
Where are all the right wing new world order black helicopter anti-u.n. conspiracy theorists when you need them. It is interesting to me how right wingers who cling to their guns don't also cling to their privacy and only idiots can be for state sponsored execution after the commuted death sentences in Florida Texas and Illinois.
If I read the impassioned rant of Mike Jones correctly people who favor the death penalty are 'idiots'. Well, Mr. Severn doesn't sound like an idiot to me & I know quite a goodly number of intelligent people who wish the death penalty universal under proper conditions. Maybe in a world where everyone indicted for murder can have a full team of lawyers instead of an overworked, & sometimes lethargic, public defender proper conditions might be found. But since that seems totally out of reach I find myself on the side 'Dave Z' & Mike Jones.
I've always been proud of my home state of Minnesota for not having the death penalty. We do have a governor--Tim Pawlenty--who would like nothing better than to install it here.
Dennis Jones
I heard Dave on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! podcast and he was passionate, courageous, and articulate. I do find myself waffling about the death penalty though. I used to be against it in all cases, but now I'm thinking that it would be the only fair response to those people who are convicted for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This would include virtually the entire Bush administration. When someone brazenly and premeditatedly orders the death, torture, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people--if not millions by now--I think the case might be made for the death penalty. Not impeachment; imprisonment.
As disturbing as I am sure Dave's experience has been for him and the other activists who were targeted by the cointelpro-esq tactics in maryland and across the U.S. in a way I find it a hopeful sign that the powers that be are feeling necessary to target dissenters. It means that we are actually making enough of an impact to warrant the attention. More and more mainstream Americans are waking up to the social consequences of business-as-usual in this country. They are looking for answers and leadership and the power structure is terrified that people might just fighting for their own self interest socially and economically. I am not shocked by their tactics, elites will stoop to any means they deem necessary to retain their grip on power. We just have to be ready to make a principled stand against it. Thanks Dave for fighting the good fight.
When blogging, I know that I have checked up on the information that Sitemeter gives me about my traffic, and there have been some government URLs that have come up. Putting these moles in the middle of face-to-face meetings concerning issues one cares about, however, is truly insidious, especially since these professional actors can keep this up for much longer periods of time....and they don't have MOLE stamped on their foreheads.
Neither situation ought to completely change people's minds or beliefs - in fact, if these people really had ANY sense of history, they would know that these kinds of tactics tend to backfire in a big way.
Glad to see that you are not cowering in a corner or melting into the woodwork like these folks doubtless want you, and others like you, to do.
Your site- edgeofsports.com is interesting resource, good job, owner.
Good luck.
Oh great, I bought one of your books with my debit card....what kind of madness are you dragging me into Dave?!? Now they're going to be knock knock knocking on my front door.
Keep up the wonderful information dissemination.
Your site- edgeofsports.com is cool site, good job, webmaster.
Firstly, I'd sign up for any anti-death penalty campaign -- of course, I can also be anotherundercover agent!... Any thorough review of the DP is that its only value is "revenge" -- and even that is suspect as victims never feel better like they thought they would afterwords... When emotions are put aside, It brings absolutely no value -- only mess ups.
But I'm very curious Dave, how were you able to find out about "Lucy"?
The site edgeofsports.com is interesting site.
Tnks, admin.
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