duck note: this is next door to me. I have just send for my FOIA files, let's see who comes knocking at my door.....
FBI's queries rattle activist
Agents seek info on possible violence at political conventions
By Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News
July 27, 2004
The FBI questioned a Fort Collins resident about potential plots to disrupt the nation's political conventions, a day after some Denver residents were quizzed.
The 45-year-old software engineer in Fort Collins said he was questioned Friday by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
"Apparently my name came up at headquarters in (Washington) D.C. as a person who might know some information about terrorist plots at the conventions - plans for people to get hurt and so forth," said Paul Bame, who described himself as "rattled and scared" when he was questioned by an FBI agent at his workplace on Friday.
Colorado FBI spokeswoman Monique Kelso said she didn't know if similar questioning is occurring nationwide, but Colorado ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein said he has been told that it is happening in several states.
Bame's questioning followed a similar inquisition last week by task force members of some young activists in two Denver homes.
One, an intern with the American Friends Service Committee - a Quaker group devoted to nonviolence - said the officers asked if they planned to commit any crimes at the national conventions, if they knew anyone who did and if they knew that failure to report such plans was a crime.
Some members of that group had participated the day before in a protest of a Denver police shooting of a 63-year-old disabled man.
They also have participated in other protests and said they suspect that's why they were questioned.
Denver Deputy Police Chief Mike Battista, who is in charge while Chief Gerry Whitman is on vacation, did not return a telephone call Monday about the questioning. The Denver Police Department contributes officers to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Last year, Denver settled a federal civil lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union by agreeing to purge its files of surveillance information on peaceful political activists and to stop keeping "spy files" on them.
Files kept by police officers categorized the American Friends Service Committee, which once won the Nobel Peace Prize, as a "criminal extremist" organization.
Silverstein said that settlement may not apply to Denver police officers who participate in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. When asked that question in 2002 at a meeting about the spy files settlement, Whitman said the new rules applied to Denver officers on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, but the then-city attorney said they didn't, Silverstein said.
Kelso said Monday that the young people in Denver were not selected for questioning because they had protested.
"It's an ongoing investigation that we've been working for some time now," she said.
She said the investigation is not over, that no one has been arrested to her knowledge and that she could not answer questions about who authorized the questioning.
Justice Department headquarters in Washington referred inquiries to the FBI.
A spokesman at FBI headquarters in Washington asked that questions be e-mailed but did not respond to them Monday.
Bame said he has been arrested twice during anti-globalization protests, in Washington in 2000 and Miami last year. Police arrested hundreds of people at those two events.
Bame said he pleaded guilty in Washington to parading without a permit, and the Florida charge against him, obstructing a sidewalk, was dismissed.
Bame said he declined to answer the FBI agent's question without a lawyer present and offered to have his lawyer get in touch.
He said the agent didn't seem interested in questioning him with his lawyer present. "I'm going to have my lawyer contact him anyway," he said.
Bame also declined to answer the question directly for the Rocky Mountain News Monday, but he said, "I'm also very concerned that people don't get hurt, and I found that I couldn't help him."
He said the agent first left a message on his home telephone Thursday, but when he returned the agent's call on Friday, the agent wasn't available.
Then, when Bame returned to his office after lunch on Friday, a security officer with his company was waiting at his desk to escort him to the lobby to meet with the agent.
Bame went to the lobby with "much fear," he said.
"He said that it was not intended to be embarrassing or accusatory, but they were just checking with people who might have information," Bame said.
"He mentioned that the 9/11 Commission had treated the FBI pretty badly, and he implied they were being really careful or really thorough," he said.
He said the agent seemed "really intelligent" and that he suspected the agent "realized he was really not talking to somebody who was going to have the kind of information they were looking for."
Bame said he volunteers at a community radio station in Fort Collins and that he works with a group called The Pagan Cluster.
"We're a bunch of middle-aged weird people," Blame said.
The Pagan Cluster, among other things, objects to economic globalization - the merging of world economies as in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Opponents think globalization jeopardizes the environment and workers' rights.
Bame isn't attending the Democratic National Convention under way in Boston, but he plans to attend the Republican National Convention in New York in August. He may protest there or support demonstrators, he said.
"I'm sure if we were to ask the FBI why they're doing this, they would say we have to be real careful about terrorism," Bame said. "The practical effect of this is scaring the crap out of people, which is going to end up scaring people from using their First Amendment rights," he said.
mailto:abbottk@RockyMountainNews.com
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3066739,00.html
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