Thank you so much for having us here. The ACLU of Northern California, in conjunction with a local independent newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, filed a Freedom of Information Act request on the FBI to find out whether, in fact, all of the suspicions of FBI surveillance were, in fact, true. Om, we got no response for awhile, om, and so, in July, we sued, om, in federal court. Om, not too long after we filed the lawsuit, the FBI produced documents. An initial set, om, which do two things: om, somewhat not surprisingly, the FBI has, in fact, been keeping tabs on the Occupy Movement, but what was much more interesting was what the FBI refused to hand over. They acknowledged that additional documents exist, but that they were not going to provide us with them, invoking several, what are called, ‘exemptions’ under the Freedom of Information Act, one of those reasons being, ‘National Security.’
So. There were additional pages that they did not produce and two things, I think, are especially interesting about them: 1. They held back some of the documents based on supposed ‘National Security.’ Now, if Occupy really implicates ‘National Security,’ one would suspect the FBI has in its possession more than thirty-seven pages. 2. Why is a political protest movement a matter of ‘National Security’? It's not very surprising to us that the FBI would invoke the sort of ordinary law enforcement exemptions (that's the standard thing it does, in most of these cases), but ‘National Security’ really ratchets it up to a different level. ‘National Security’ is usually what you'd expect to see if we're trying to get spies, satellite photo images of nuclear reactors, but, obviously, we're not asking for anything of that sort. Our concern is that the FBI is treating political protests like a threat to ‘National Security,’ when political protest is actually not a threat, it's our nation's lifeblood.
Om, it's of enormous concern that the U.S. government is consistently applying for, what are called, 'Location Tracking Orders' under seal. It's essential that this evolving judicial decision-making process happen by light of public day, than under the cover of knight. The idea that Electronic Surveillance — a very controversial and evolving area of Law — would be happening in secret is shocking. ~ Linda Lye, ACLU-NC Lawyer’s Council Member, Board Member & Donor
