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Published on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
Activism Is Not a Crime: Why I Will Not Testify Before This Federal Grand Jury
I have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago on January 25. But I will not testify, even at the risk of being put in jail for contempt of court, because I believe that our most fundamental rights as citizens are at stake.
I am one of 23 anti-war, labor and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into "material support for foreign terrorist organizations." No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers' homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?
The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the US wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end US military aid for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and US military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly US foreign policy.
I spent a year and a half working for a human rights organization in the occupied West Bank, where I witnessed how Israel established "facts on the ground" at the expense of international law and Palestinian rights. I saw the wall, settlements and checkpoints and the ugly reality of life under Israeli occupation which is bankrolled by the US government on the taxpayer's dime. Many of us who are facing the grand jury have traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Colombia to learn about the human rights situation and the impact of US foreign policy in those places so we may educate fellow Americans upon our return and work to build movements to end our government's harmful intervention abroad.
Travel for such purposes should be protected by the first amendment. But new legislation now allows the US government to consider such travel as probable cause for invasive investigations that disrupt our movements and our lives.
The June 2010 US Supreme Court decision Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project expanded even further the scope of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to include first amendment activity such as political speech and human rights training.
Even former President Jimmy Carter feels vulnerable under these laws because of his work doing elections training in Lebanon where one of the main political parties, until earlier this month a member of the ruling coalition, is listed as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the US State Department. "The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom," Carter has said.
Former FBI officer Mike German, who now works with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the television program Democracy Now! that the subpoenas, search warrants and materials seized from activists' homes make it clear that the government is interested in "address books, computer records, literature and advocacy materials, first amendment sort of materials." He added, "unfortunately, after 9/11, [investigation standards] have been diluted significantly to where the FBI literally requires no factual predicate to start an investigation."
The US government doesn't need to call me before a grand jury to learn my activities and my beliefs. I have often appealed to my elected representatives to take a principled stand on foreign policy issues, protested outside federal buildings and have written countless articles over the years that can be easily found through a Google search.
Witnesses called to testify to a grand jury have no right to have a lawyer in the room and the jury is hand-picked by government prosecutors with no screening for bias. It is the ultimate abuse of power for a citizen to be forced to account to the government for no other reason than her exercise of constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and association.
This is why these grand jury proceedings are a threat to the rights of all Americans, and why those of us who have been targeted, and others in the movements we work with, call them a witch hunt. And, even though it means I risk being jailed for the life of the grand jury, I will not be appearing before it.
The grand jury has been scrapped in virtually all countries and more than half the states in this country. There is a long American history of abusing grand juries to launch inquisitions into domestic political movements, from the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement to labor activists advocating for an eight-hour work day to the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years.
We have done nothing wrong and risk being jailed because we have exercised our rights to free speech, to organize and hold our government accountable. It is a dark day for America when people face jail for exercising the rights that we hold so dear.
I am one of 23 anti-war, labor and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into "material support for foreign terrorist organizations." No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers' homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?
The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the US wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end US military aid for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and US military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly US foreign policy.
I spent a year and a half working for a human rights organization in the occupied West Bank, where I witnessed how Israel established "facts on the ground" at the expense of international law and Palestinian rights. I saw the wall, settlements and checkpoints and the ugly reality of life under Israeli occupation which is bankrolled by the US government on the taxpayer's dime. Many of us who are facing the grand jury have traveled to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Colombia to learn about the human rights situation and the impact of US foreign policy in those places so we may educate fellow Americans upon our return and work to build movements to end our government's harmful intervention abroad.
Travel for such purposes should be protected by the first amendment. But new legislation now allows the US government to consider such travel as probable cause for invasive investigations that disrupt our movements and our lives.
The June 2010 US Supreme Court decision Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project expanded even further the scope of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 to include first amendment activity such as political speech and human rights training.
Even former President Jimmy Carter feels vulnerable under these laws because of his work doing elections training in Lebanon where one of the main political parties, until earlier this month a member of the ruling coalition, is listed as a "foreign terrorist organization" by the US State Department. "The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom," Carter has said.
Former FBI officer Mike German, who now works with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the television program Democracy Now! that the subpoenas, search warrants and materials seized from activists' homes make it clear that the government is interested in "address books, computer records, literature and advocacy materials, first amendment sort of materials." He added, "unfortunately, after 9/11, [investigation standards] have been diluted significantly to where the FBI literally requires no factual predicate to start an investigation."
The US government doesn't need to call me before a grand jury to learn my activities and my beliefs. I have often appealed to my elected representatives to take a principled stand on foreign policy issues, protested outside federal buildings and have written countless articles over the years that can be easily found through a Google search.
Witnesses called to testify to a grand jury have no right to have a lawyer in the room and the jury is hand-picked by government prosecutors with no screening for bias. It is the ultimate abuse of power for a citizen to be forced to account to the government for no other reason than her exercise of constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and association.
This is why these grand jury proceedings are a threat to the rights of all Americans, and why those of us who have been targeted, and others in the movements we work with, call them a witch hunt. And, even though it means I risk being jailed for the life of the grand jury, I will not be appearing before it.
The grand jury has been scrapped in virtually all countries and more than half the states in this country. There is a long American history of abusing grand juries to launch inquisitions into domestic political movements, from the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement to labor activists advocating for an eight-hour work day to the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years.
We have done nothing wrong and risk being jailed because we have exercised our rights to free speech, to organize and hold our government accountable. It is a dark day for America when people face jail for exercising the rights that we hold so dear.
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75 Comments so far
Show AllThe government lawyers who are behind this, including Eric Holder and Barack Obama, should be disbarred.
Disbarred and arrested for denying due process to Maureen and others.
Holder, the DOJ, and Obama are a disgrace to the Constitution as they've pursued this misguided, dubious case.
Maureen...you have many, many supporters around the nation...by standing up this repression by the DOJ you are defending and upholding all of our rights to exercise our constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and association.
Right on, to Maureen; part de resistance to the fascist amerikan empire is: do not participate, do not pay Blood money/ taxes, do not join their military, do not vote for any who have blood on their hands.....resist them at all levels !
How contradictory is it that this president was a featured speaker at an anti-Iraq War Rally in Chicago on October 2, 2002, and addressed a later anti-war rally in Chicago in March, 2003, exclaiming, "It's not too late!"
Contradictory, too, that the Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to someone who could immensely promote peace on our planet, but who in turn unleashes his Department of Justice to prosecute... peace activists!
Godspeed, Maureen Murphy, and to your fellow anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists.
In solidarity, Bill Cullen in Dubuque
Evidently, the peace activists need to see the movie, "Network". They have messed with the powers that "be" and no obstacles to the War Machine will be tolerated. Any rationale will do, The Maine, Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin, invasion of Kuwait, commies are coming, 911, the terrorists etc etc. Get out of the way there is a treasury to be looted and profits to be made. God bless Amerika, we thank you for your service.
Bonsoir, Maureen Murphy.
I am writing you from France to suggest that you consider a trip to Europe (NOT England), where you will be free to request political asylum ie. in a place like Sweden, Norway or the Netherlands. And from there yours will become an international "cause célèbre," with plenty of well-deserved publicity for your cause.
I am unfortunately unable to suggest Frace as a safe haven, since Sarkozy has done nothing but lick Amerikan boots (beginning with his sick adulation of the bush/neocon thugs) -- although the French "Rights of Man" recognize every person's inalienable right to peacefully demonstrate against any government's harassment and to resist such grand jury "fishing expeditions."
Keep making waves -- and much continued courage to you, (signed) Maureen Ellis, a Chicago gal from long ago (in a "previous," unhappy lifetime).
The principle difference between the Obama and Bush administrations is that "liberals" are loathe to protest against the same crimes when Obama is President. Otherwise, two peas in a pod in terms of committing crimes against humanity and against our 800 year tradition of legal rights.
Is Patrick Fitzgerald trying to start an Irishman's Fourth Reich? As special Prosecutor, he gave arch- criminal Karl Rove several passes for perjury, when Fitzgerald could have put Rove away for years for the many lies that Rove told federal investigators during the FBI's investigation into Scooter Libby's role in the Valerie Plame case.
Patrick now is turning his considerable guns on innocent dissidents. He should know better than that, as these good Chicago folks have committed no crime other than to point out the seamlessness of the Bush and Obama adminstrations with regard both to their conduct of foreign wars and to their trampling of civil liberties here at home.
This whole sordid mess is something that Predator O'Bomber could stop in a moment, were he to order the pliant Eric Holder to tell Patrick Fitzgerald to call off the dogs. But O'Bomber will just drone on, in both his speeches and his wars. He is Bush Lite for sure, having drowned his supporters in a disappointing hangover. There is not even a hint of a crime here from what I can tell. The government's purpose is to set an example, to show Americans by this demonstration of fascism that the price of dissent is high, so high as to condition ordinary Americans not to speak out. If the masses aren't trembling before the prospect of terrorism, they at least need to be afraid of their government.
That I saw through this imposter/mole and voted for Ralph Nader marked one of the proudest moments of my life. It cost me friends and one relationship, but too damn bad. I'm sick of limousine liberals who are obsessed with having a woman or black in the White House, who believe that identity politics trumps good governance as a first priority. Identity politics accomplishes nothing, as Obama kills on with Hillary in tow, what with her lasting admiration for the roguish McChrystal(Is there a pattern here?) Strict discrimination laws are there to make thing fair and equal for all, but the limousine liberals, desperate to elevate any minority, are like the poor Southern blacks who flooded their Democratic Senators with phone calls to urge their votes for Clarence Thomas' nomination, after Clarence cloaked himself in a martyr's robe and complained of his hi-tech lynching, as if Anita Hill had begun lynching her own. Thomas played the race card and got his seat. A white similarly accused would have no race card to play, no brothers to fool, and would have faced Senate rejection.
And Thomas, strangely mute in a judicial robe, has done far less for blacks than the O'Bomber has for peace, prosperity, and civil liberties. And Hillary, like mad Madeline and coy Condi before her, continues enabling the ways of a brutal administration and the murderous men atop it, midwifing their wars of death and destruction across the world.
I concur with Noam Chomsky, who gingerly and gently mocked conventional liberals in his speech in Knoxville, Tenessee last Tuesday night at the Cox Auditorium. Trying to mimick Sarah Palin was difficult for this world renown intellectual, but in a squeaky voice yet heard at MIT, he asked the audience how "that hopey, changey, stuff is workin' out for ya". The audience roared with laughter and applause.
This is what democracy looks like. And every citizen has the right to redress the government according to the Declaration of Independence. The Grand Whorporate Jury can't deny that.
Courage, love, forgiveness. Thank you Activists.
What is even more sad about this is that you have Sarah, Michelle, and the rest of the tea-bagged wingnuts openly THREATENING the government while nothing is done!
It's not only unjust, it's CRIMINAL!
EXACTLY!!!! The hypocrisy and irony STINKS to high heaven!
Nothing is done because the pistol packin mama grizzly from Alaska and her Tea Bag ilk do not threaten the war business. Can you imagine the outrage from the right wing extremists, if a Muslim had put those cross hair targets on their website!
Exactly. The ruling class LIKES it when people waste their time and energy on disseminating pro-corporate, quasi-fascist propaganda.
NEWS FLASH...Hillary just said today that she expects the government of Eygpt to respect the protestors and to allow them their right to protest...wow, s'pose she might suggest that to OUR GOVERNMENT?????
Oh, sorry, I spoke out of turn there. I actually thought for a split second that it is OUR government. Some very good comments here.
Thank you for taking yet another highly principled stand, at great personal risk, for peace and freedom. You and the other targets of this witch-hunt truly are heroes for standing up to these oppressive actions by our "constitutional scholar" President. The FBI's priorities are so misplaced. Please let us know how we can support you and the other twenty-two.
Thank you for your courage, for your activism, and for speaking out.
This article by Ms. Murphy belongs in every Op-Ed section of every major newspaper in the U.S. The people of this country deserve to read of the strong-arm tactics that are used by their government against people who dare to protest against the bellicose policies of the United States.
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it."-Edward R. Murrow
"It is never too late to do right."-Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882], American essayist and poet
"So what is this investigation really about?"
Names... they're making their list.
God bless them and keep them safe -- especially in these increasingly fascistic times.
yes it is.
opposing the wars is the worst crime, according to the war criminals, who are in charge of justice.
Who can protect you from such a grave attack on your right to free speech? Well, united we stand!
When our government is committing crimes, it will accuse others of crimes in order to create a smoke screen to hide its own crimes. Although everlasting war is totally against the vision of our founding fathers as well as against all national and international laws, the plutocrats find war extremely profitable, so they will always come back to calling anti-war people "traitors, criminals, terrorists, etc." We know who the real criminals are, but for some reason we can't seem to vote them out of office.
If you're not a corporation then you likely no longer have the right to free speech.
Yes. Witness the fictions foisted upon us by corporations in every aspect of our lives. And then, when people tell the TRUTH, they are prosecuted. Most people don't even grasp the absurdity of it all. We "go along to get along" and end up believing in the money-and-power interests rather than our own consciences.
This travesty in Chicago is truly a witch hunt. We must speak out.
It's the CEOs and presidents of their boards that are the real criminals. It is corporations that amplify their power. We can prosecute the CEOs and board presidents at least in the court of public opinion.
"Witnesses called to testify to a grand jury have no right to have a lawyer in the room ... "
Not only that, but the 5th amendment is suspended in the Grand Jury proceedings. In other words, one may not "take the 5th" when being questioned by prosecutors.
And in the case of Pres. Clinton, the grand jury wasn't held behind closed doors, it was held on nationwide television.
Good luck finding 12 Chicagoans who will fall for this latest government hustle. She should go to the Grand Jury and see if the gov't can even seat 12 Americans who believe the gov't isn't a bunch of scammers! They seat me, I'll advise charges against the Feds for crimes against humanity and lying to the American people.
hey, just wanted to let you know that Grand Juries are quite different from Juries seated for trials. They are investigative bodies and tend to be stacked with people who trust the government and its investigators. I don't know how they are selected, but i'm pretty sure its kinda secret and not the same as when juries are selected for actual trials.
You can get any thing you want at Alice's Restaurant 2-3-4
You can get any thing you want, 3-4 at Alice's Restaurant.
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get any thing you want at Alice's Restaurant.
"If you want to end war & stuff, you've got to sing LOUD!"
--Arlo Guthrie
As for me I will continue to publicly oppose war and occupation. What about the rest of you? Will it only be here online or will you speak out in your own community and on its streets? If not, the fascists have won and you better keep your mouth shut about any and all things not approved by your corporate masters. Just remember that war is REALLY big business. In fact I think it's safe to say it is really the only business of the USA.
War is America's business and those who oppose it are anti-American. The State will crush those who oppose it, like it has crushed them throughout history. Senator McCarthy crushed the left and American universities never have recovered. The State eliminated MLK because he opposed war. The State has banished Julian Assange and one day will imprison him.
And "progressives" go along with perpetual war in order to glean the leavings of their masters. "Progressives" like Thom Hartmann support Obama and his wars because they believe that small dregs, like a supreme court nominee or a mediocre financial regulation, constitute "progress." To most "progressives," killing poor people in foreign lands means little, so long as they get their leavings.
As Kurt Vonnegutt said, you are who you pretend to be. At least brave people like Maureen Murphy stand up to the war machine, even if they know they have less chance than Don Quixote. But those who pretend that they can change the system by working inside, have to accept the label of "baby killers," because that is what everyone who supports was is -- a mass murderer of innocents, particularly children.
Sad, but true.
I think that the only solution for true progressives is to create a little co-op system of our own, one that can exist within the current American political and corporate system independently.
I'm one of those middle-aged progressives who has become tired and disheartened from the apparent pointlessness, or at least uselessness, of our political efforts.
We talk too much, and do too little.
We all know what should, or could, be done...but none of us is doing it.
rougy, "We all know what should or could be done, but none of us is doing it"
The author of this article is "doing it". We created little independant co-ops in the 60s, they were called communes. A generation of idealistic men and women, recognized the bullshit inherant in our consumer society and experimented with alternate life styles, learning the skills to survive as they went along. They learned how to get along with each other and respect for the earth. It threatened the very core of our throw away culture, and was attacked, marginalized and eventually destroyed. A few remain. It could happen again but there are not many willing to give up their comfy lifestyle. As in the early union struggles, it was the poor and disenfrancised who fought for rights of working men and women.
Blow up your TV, talk to your neighbor, tend your gsrden.
All good points.
We on the left just don't seem to have a "super objective" SOP like they do on the right.
We spend too much of our time reacting to the right instead of setting a goal of our own and pursuing it, in the big picture, macro sense.
If the four left-leaning hosts of MSNBC would commit themselves to lefty projects, that would be a real world instance of "doing something" in the sense that I was talking about.
The free clinic thing they did on Keith's show was great. If Ratigan, O'Donnel, Maddow, and Schultz would coordinate and set aside a three to five minute segment of each of their shows, and dedicate that time to doing something along the "free clinic" lines again, that would be the kind of progress I'd like to see.
Some people refused to testify before HUAC during the Joe McCarthy era. They believed that their political beliefs were their own private business. Some were sentenced to prison terms for contempt of congress. I guess what we have here is "witchhunt redux". And I guess Americans will have to start hiding their beliefs. Maybe this is the start of Gulags in the US?!?!?
"I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee, that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, that I am any less of an American than anyone else. - - I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs, or how I voted in any election or any of these private affairs."
"I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung because singing is my business. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them."
"Where have all the flowers gone - long time passing- "
"I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out warning -"
"A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.
To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season - - "
--Pete Seeger
Thanks. I needed that. :)
==http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger==
It is fun to read this Wikipedia entry for Pete Seeger. I am old enough to recall hearing Ledbelly's =Good Night, Irene= sung on the radio by the Weavers.
Irene, good night
Irene, good night
Good night, Irene
Good night, Irene,
I'll see you in my dreams.
Since 1949 Pete Seeger has been associated with Beacon, NY - a small town on the east bank of the Hudson River. This, tickles my heart because my family lived in Beacon during the War Years 1943, 1944, 1945. I was sent to summer camp there 1952, 53.
But could it give a forum to progressives?
No.
Well said.
Welcome to the FSA..
The Fascist States of America.
Watching these last handfuls of peace activists hounded by our weird oligarchic government while the planet is consumed by war, pollution, and starvation is such a sick joke. America will keep thinking war is cool until millions die in our own cities from one.
It's amazing the arrogance of this country. The reality is that we're merely permitted to live another day by a handful of disdainful Russians that could incinerate every city in America twenty minutes from now at the push of a button.
This species is in terminal decline. There are simply too many venal corporations and governments with greedy, destructive, corrupt agendas to avoid a mass die-off for much longer as the environment worsens, the climate destabilizes and one-by-one the larger human life-supporting systems fail.
An age of terror and blood, as Chris Hedges called it. What did we ever do to deserve to be swamped like this by hordes of vicious morons?
What, the Land of the Free?
Whoever told you that is your enemy!
Perhaps Ms. Murphy can escape to a country with no extradition treaty with the Imperial Homeland?
There is indeed a long, sad history of abuse of the grand jury investigative powers by targeting political groups such as the pre-Civil War abolitionists, union activists, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. A leading US Supreme Court case is a 1958 decision NAACP v Alabama, squarely holding that the government cannot hold persons engaged in political advocacy in contempt for refusing to divulge membership lists or the names of individuals who might be active in the group's efforts. Being compelled to reveal such information infringed upon the Constitutionally protected right to freedom of association, according to NAACP v Alabama.
If you ever do have the misfortune like Maureen Murphy to be on the receiving end of a grand jury subpoena, the standard legal advice is this: show up, identify yourself, and then assert your right to be silent, either on Fifth Amendment grounds, or (as in the case of the NAACP activists who were battling Jim Crow in the south back in the '50's) on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
It is still risky, unpleasant business of course. "Failing to cooperate", however and wherever you draw the line, can and likely will be characterized as a form of contempt by the prosecutors. So it's a good idea to have a lawyer lined up in advance.
But by and large, you are generally better advised not to ignore the subpoena and boycott the proceeding to make a political point, but rather to show up, properly identify yourself in response to the subpoena that was served upon you, and then refuse to answer anything further whatsoever, asserting exercise of your Constitutional right to free expression, to freedom of association, and to remain silent if you so choose.
After all, abuse of the grand jury process is all about a government effort to chill free speech. So call it what it really is.
Bill from Saginaw
The government has also misused the Grand Jury Material Witness clause to hold people indefinitely without charging them with anything.
Why weren't the creators of the risky mortgages, the risky mortgage bundlers, the miss labelers of the bundles and the credit default swap debacle people all hauled into grand juries? Why didn’t they have their freedoms and rights taken away and homes invaded? Why weren’t they infiltrated? Why are they not being punished?
Austerity measures?
Social engineering by the powers that be?
Because they control the money?
Just questions