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Earlier this year on Meet the Press, President Bush relayed a conversation he'd had with Spanish PM Aznar. "He said to me, he said, 'You're nearly as unpopular as Ronald Reagan was.' I said, 'so, first of all, I'm keeping pretty good company.'" Little wonder Bush would hope to link himself to Reagan; the latter has achieved mythic standing among Republicans. This the "new" Reagan, mind you, product of a decade-long GOP campaign to rewrite history. The new Reagan, wiped clean of any and all allegations, free from questions about Iran/Contra and such; the Reagan they'd see carved into Mt. Rushmore and replace FDR on the dime.

Discrepancies between Reagan's "legacy" and historical record are far too many to list here, now. But regardless of who Reagan was or wasn't, the current president is likely to leave a legacy more akin to Nixon's, with its own brand of dirty tricks, shady dealings and the obligatory blacklist of enemies.

It's a long list, that one. The enemy, you see, is greater than merely Al Qaeda. The enemy is among us. In fact, according to the administration, there's good reason to suspect that the enemy is us.

The strong-arm tactics law enforcement has taken to using against even the most law-abiding citizen protestors have seen precious little coverage in the press. Just as few stories have dealt with the disturbing practice of corralling protestors at Bush appearances into "Free Speech Zones," far from both the event itself and the blind eye of the media. Largely those reports rose briefly to the surface, were quickly discounted with caveats and dismissals, and then disappeared from public view altogether.

Under the auspices of the War on Terror, American civil liberties have been more than compromised, they've been assaulted. Thanks to the efforts of a few journalists still sincerely practicing their craft, we're now seeing light shed on the activities of Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country since 9/11, and what the darkness was hiding is ugly indeed.

In a recent story, Salon magazine reports that under the watchful eye and financial encouragement of John Ashcroft, local law enforcement agencies across America—from Denver to Fresno, Grand Rapids to Albuquerque—have been infiltrating citizen groups opposing this administration's policies. Let's be clear on this: local police have been spying on the citizenry of the United States of America.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is. Under J. Edgar Hoover in the '60s and early '70s, the FBI engaged in widespread infiltration, surveillance, and even sabotage of political dissidents through COINTELPRO. While formed to investigate violent groups like the KKK, and later on the Weather Underground and Black Panthers, COINTELPRO also harassed thousands of innocent Americans.

Nationwide, local law enforcement agencies formed counterintelligence groups modeled after COINTELPRO to spy on possible traitors in their own midst. The effect was chilling. Today, in an effort to justify and qualify for a piece of the already under funded Homeland Security pie, local law enforcement has an even greater incentive to play by rules set by the Justice Department.

When the excesses of COINTELPRO were finally brought to light, then-AG Edward Levi proposed new rules for domestic surveillance by the FBI, establishing criminal activity as the only criteria by which to initiate surveillance of an American citizen. Mindful of the need to protect against foreign threats however, the Levi Guidelines did not apply in cases with ties to "foreign powers."

In the smoky and confusing aftermath of Sept. 11, Ashcroft gutted the Levi Guidelines, stating falsely that adherence would make it impossible to bring Al Qaeda to justice. Just one more lie lost in the flood. The result? FBI agents may now subversively infiltrate and monitor public meetings, even without suspecting criminal activity.

According to a spokesperson for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, "You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest," he said. "You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act."

Immediately following the attack upon our country, concerned citizens' groups warned against the possible erosion of our civil liberties under the guise of "homeland security." Though these warnings were summarily dismissed by government and media alike, we're now seeing the fruit of Ashcroft's wide-net strategy.

At issue in the War on Terror has always been who defines what it means to be a terrorist. Ashcroft has blurred the legal line to such a great degree that now, disagreeing with the administration's policies, and exerting your rights as an American citizen to protest those policies, somehow falls into the same investigatory bucket as acts of actual terrorism.

It's been said that one of the worst failings of 9/11 was the disbelief that a group like Al Qaeda could, and would, attack us in the manner in which they ultimately did. By trivializing the definition and investigation of terrorist activity, the attorney general does more than clamp down on our individual freedoms; worse still, he invites just that sort of failure to come home once again to roost.

Mitch Cohen is a freelance writer & media analyst. More of his work can be found at http://mitchcohen.blogspot.com Email him at [e-mail missing]

Previous Comments

ID

85035

Comment

I should have included this link when I delivered the column to Donna, but I urge you all to read the two-part Salon article referenced above. Note: if you're not a Salon subscriber, click on the "Day Pass" icon, watch a quick ad and you'll have full access to the site for 24 hours. Part One Part Two

Author

mitch

Date

2004-04-14T11:59:57-06:00

ID

85036

Comment

To quote a friend who worked for the feds for 30 years: "Never trust the government."

Author

kate

Date

2004-04-14T16:41:30-06:00