Don’t Spy on Us! (Again)
by Mary Day Kent

This past June 14, WILPF joined with other peace and advocacy groups in Philadelphia to file a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA request, for copies of all documents and evidence on record obtained by government agencies concerning WILPF, asked for files on the organization as well as on many of our National Board members and Pennsylvania branch leaders as individuals.

From a January, 1931 Letter from U.S. Dept. of Justice “. . . a Mr. Charles A. Jinter, of Wenonah, New Jersey, who produced a card identifying himself as a member of the American Legion in that city, called and stated that some members of the Legion had been exercised because a feminine friend had joined the International League of Peace and Freedom. These members had requested him . . . to call at the Bureau and ascertain whether this organization is affiliated with the Communists. “Of course I informed [him] that the files of the Bureau are confidential and no information could be furnished even though the Bureau should have information on this organization. He stated that the purpose of obrtaining this information was to persuade the lady to resign from her membership if it were a Communist Organization. I informed him that, speaking personally, it was my opinion the organization is a member of the Women’s Communist International, which is affiliated with the Communist International.”

The move is part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s “Don’t Spy on Me!” campaign to expose the U.S. government’s war on dissent.

U.S. WILPF’s recent FOIA request was addressed to the offices of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and departments of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and Defense. The Philadelphia and Delaware County WILPF Branches have also filed FOIA requests as part of this campaign.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania is handling most of the filing procedures as an extension of its work on behalf of the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, for which it had made an earlier FOIA request that revealed the center to be under surveillance by the FBI and the Federal Joint Terrorism Task Force. Undercover agents attended Pittsburgh vigils and marches against the war in Iraq, at taxpayer expense, and uncovered the Thomas Merton Center’s shocking secret: It is a law-abiding, nonviolent organization opposed to war.

Why file? Why now?

WILPF is filing now as a way to expose and challenge the escalating U.S. government attacks on dissent and dissenters. We are motivated by the revelations of spying on citizens authorized by President Bush without even token permission from the panel of judges who review such requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). (The judges have, historically, seldom refused any government surveillance requests.) Filing as part of a collaborative initiative makes the process more efficient and creates a stronger impact in defense of our constitutional rights to protest, to organize, to express our views, and to mobilize for change.

We don’t yet know that we have been spied on recently. We do know that other peace groups have, particularly in California. We also know that WILPF’s Philadelphia office building and its meetings were under (not very) secret infiltration and surveillance in 2000 during the Republican National Convention. And we know that when WILPF filed a previous FOIA request, in 1977, the FBI released to us nearly two dozen boxes of materials dating back to the early 1920s. These documents now occupy several feet of shelf space in the WILPF archives at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Although we can expect that any new documents obtained will be like the old ones, filled with deletions to hide crucial names or dates, the effort is still an important way to assert our rights, defend our freedom, and learn the extent to which our government will go to prevent any challenge.

What are the next steps?

Although it is more than four months since the FOIA filing, not one government agency has responded. (Under the law, “all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within twenty business days [after receipt of request], excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.”) If you as an individual, or your branch, would like to file a FOIA request to discover the nature of possible surveillance in your area, please contact me at the National Office at mdkent@wilpf.org. The ACLU of Pennsylvania has been contacting its own branches around the country and can tell us whom to contact for support. (One of the idiosyncrasies of our national security state is that it is really not “national.” The FBI and other agencies are fragmented and locally based so that the most effective filings need to be regionally or locally based rather than made to the national offices in Washington, D.C.)

In our filing statement, we quoted WILPF past president Sandy Silver: “It was—and is—a sad day when a woman is considered ‘dangerous’ for believing in and working for equality and justice for all people. If these goals are still considered ‘dangerous,’ then our government has a great deal to worry about.” Stay tuned.

For more information about the FOIA, visit www.usdoj.gov/04foia/04_3.html. Learn more about the ACLU’s Don’t Spy on Me! program at www.aclu.org.

Mary Day Kent is executive director, U.S. WILPF.