Three Democratic Congressmen Question FBI Tactics Against Protestors

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and two other Democrats on the panel, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert C. Scott of Virginia, have had the guts to write and sign a letter to the inspector general of the Justice Department, asking for a Justice Department investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's questioning of would-be demonstrators about possible violence at the political conventions, saying the questioning may have violated the First Amendment. (See the earlier post, "Free America," for background.)

The three lawmakers, who evidently can tell s**t from Shinola, said the F.B.I. inquiries appeared to represent "systematic political harassment and intimidation of legitimate antiwar protesters." (NYTimes story here.)

And in some cases, obviously, this sinister s**t has worked: "Officials of the F.B.I. would not say how many interviews the bureau had conducted. Civil rights advocates who have monitored the process estimated that at least several dozen people had received visits from agents at their homes and elsewhere in recent weeks. They said they were continuing to collect anecdotal information from demonstrators who had been approached by federal agents. In a newly disclosed episode in Colorado, two college students said that an F.B.I. agent approached the faculty adviser for their campus group late last month and that the agent showed photographs of the students, Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said. The students did not want their names or college disclosed, Mr. Silverstein said, because 'they're really scared out of their minds.' "

Scared s**tless ... a fitting motto for El Presidente's America, no?