Stand up for your rights!
by Pete Shell, Merton Center Board Member.

The recently-announced lifting of civil-rights-era restrictions on the FBI should prompt us all to action. Since the anti-WTO protests began two years ago, the FBI and local police departments have increased politically motivated targeting of activists.  Since September 11, the Ashcroft "Justice" Department has intensified this sometimes-unconstitutional crackdown on our political rights. As Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild recently wrote: "Recent trends include pre-emptive strikes to curb First Amendment activity such as the denial of demonstration permits based on content, harsher treatment of protestors (including the use of pepper spray and potentially lethal force), enhanced sentences for low-level offenses, and interrogation based on political viewpoint."

Now it could get even worse as the FBI seeks to make it even easier to crack down on legal dissent. History shows that power gives nothing up without struggle. As Frederick Douglas said in 1857, "Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them". Civil rights are like a muscle: we have to exercise them to keep them in good shape. We need to start pushing back and not tolerate further violations of our constitutional rights to peaceful and legal political organizing. The best way to do this is to increase our activism, especially around civil-liberties issues. Locally here are some things you can do:

• Sign a letter to Allegheny County D.A. Zappala Jr. asking him to drop the unjust charges against Getu Tewolde, a legal Ethiopean immigrant who has been subject to police and prison brutality and racist hysteria. See http://www.freegetu.org for the letter and how to get more involved.
• Join the Merton Center Civil Liberties/Anti-Racism Committee. The next meeting and pot-luck is 6/6/2002 at 6:00pm.
• Most importantly, while we fight back against the encroachments on our rights, let us not become intimidated or preoccupied by them. Remember that we are on the right side of history and we are doing nothing wrong!
• Required reading for all activists are excerpts from Brian Glick's book "War At Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists" which explains how to deal with government surveillance, attempted infiltration and harrassment. See also "Security for Activists"

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"I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is needed, and violence will not really change anything: at most it will only transfer power from one set of bull-beaded authorities to another."  Thomas Merton
© Thomas Merton Center 2002