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Storm over FBI profiling of protesters

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington nov. 23. The FBI has collected extensive information on anti-war protests and protesters and has asked local enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protest sites to its counter-terrorism squads, according to a report in The New York Times.

The Bureau is said to have detailed not only the tactics of the demonstrators — who have used so-called training camps for rehearsing — but has also gone into recruitment.

The memorandum is said to have been sent just 10 days before thousands gathered in Washington and San Francisco protesting against the war and occupation in Iraq.

The paper report makes the point that FBI officials have said in interviews that the exercise is only aimed at identifying anarchists and "extremist elements" and that it does not target the political speech of lawful anti-war protesters.

But civil rights advocates and activists see a rollback to the days of J Edgar Hoover who in the 1960s and 1970s spied on political protesters like Martin Luther King Jr.

According to the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI is blurring the distinction between terrorism and lawful civil disobedience.

What is being stressed is the exercise will have a deterrent effect on those who wish to join peaceful demonstrations.

In the aftermath of the Hoover era, serious restrictions were put in place on how the FBI could collect information.

But 9/11 changed the whole scenario with the Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, arguing that the agency must be used aggressively to fight terrorism.

Civil rights groups have also expressed apprehension on the federal government's compilation of a list of persons deemed `terrorists' and the bar on their flying.

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