Nat Hentoff, Village Voice
J. Edgar Hoover Back at the 'New' FBI
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0350/hentoff.phpExcerpt:
Classified FBI Bulletin Reveals Tactics at Protests
Among the "tactics" the FBI advises local law enforcement agencies to track in this intelligence bulletin on "current, relevant terrorism information" is the frequent use by protesters of "the Internet to recruit, raise funds, and coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations."
This is exactly how the nation's Bill of Rights Defense Committees coordinate—and provide organizing tools for the formation of new BORDC committees—to protest Ashcroft's USA Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders in messages to their members of Congress.
And when the attorney general went on his "victory tour"—speaking only to law enforcement agencies on the virtues of the Patriot Act—BORDC and ACLU members used the Internet, exercising their First Amendment rights, to recruit demonstrators at various stops on Ashcroft's barnstorming trek.
In what part of the Constitution does the FBI have the authority to put in its databases the names of protesters using the Internet to organize peaceful demonstrations?