US: A memorandum sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to US law enforcement agencies in advance of anti-war demonstrations, has raised fears among civil rights groups of a return to the days when the FBI routinely spied on protesters.
The memo, issued last month before anti-war protests in Washington and San Francisco, appears to be a co-ordinated attempt to gather intelligence on demonstrations, according to the New York Times.
"The FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent," said Mr Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred, and I have a serious concern about whether we're going back to the days of Hoover."
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI to spy on leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Civil rights advocates have collected evidence of infiltration of demonstrations by FBI agents in recent months.
The memo revealed that the agency compiled extensive data on the tactics and organisation of anti-war groups. It analysed lawful activities such as training sessions and recruitment drives for demonstrators, as well as illegal activities such as the use of counterfeit ID to pass security. The FBI told the New York Times they were aiming to identify anarchists and "extremist elements" bent on violence.
Civil rights critics are worried however that anti-war militancy will be equated with terrorism, as the memo urges police to report suspicious or unlawful activity to their local Joint Terrorism Task Force. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said the FBI surveillance showed that the Bush administration was going to "extraordinary lengths" to attack anyone who disagreed with the Iraq war.
"It is absolutely outrageous in terms of what this country is about," Senator Kennedy told ABC News. "How could we be fighting abroad to defend our freedoms and diminishing those freedoms here at home?" Restrictions placed on the FBI's activities regarding domestic dissent after the Hoover era have been relaxed by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Now the FBI can send its agents into any legal event open to the public, including anti-war rallies and prayer gatherings.
The publication of the memo comes on the heels of an embarrassing disclosure last week that a Canadian citizen born in Syria was arrested at JFK airport, New York when in transit from Zurich to Montreal and forcibly transported by US Federal authorities to Syria on the basis of "secret evidence" of being a terrorist.
Maher Arar was tortured and detained for a year in Syria before being released without charge. The US is a signatory of the Convention Against Torture which forbids sending a person to a country where torture is believed to be used.