U.S. Feds Raid Anti-War and Arab-American Activist Homes

When anti-terror laws were passed after 9/11, many feared that they would bring about a radical shift in domestic policies for U.S. citizens and residents, beyond the slow erosion of civil liberties. Those worst nightmares came true today as the FBI raided the homes of anti-war and Arab-American activists, including students and longtime leaders, in Chicago (Obama's hometown) and Minneapolis.

The surprise moves were done under vague "criminal" and "anti-terror" search warrants, and have spurred impromptu, peaceful support vigils throughout the area. This comes just days after the FBI gave a fake bomb to a Lebanese immigrant, who placed it in a dumpster in a popular Chicago neighborhood. This isn't the America we love, it's the one we dread. And it's transforming live before our eyes.

Among the homes raided were that of Tracy Molm, a University of Minnesota student and member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS);  an unnamed director of the Arab-American Action Network; longtime anti-war leader Meredith Aby; Jessica Sundin, who led a 10,000-person anti-war march on the opening day of the Republican National Convention in 2008; and Mick Kelly, who has planned to march in Minneapolis if the Democratic National Convention is held there in 2012, among several other people.

"We are doing six federal search warrants in Minneapolis that are related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism," FBI agent Steve Warfield said in a statement. "I'm having a hard time paying my rent," Kelly said. "There is no material support." Before agents confiscated his cell phone, he added:  "The FBI is harassing anti-war organizers and leaders, folks who opposed U.S. intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."

"There’s no imminent threat to the community, and no arrests are planned,” the FBI agent stressed. So I stress that the raids are, like the Lebanese fake bomb, an unethical scare tactic of questionable constitutionality at best.

A total of eight warrants were issued by the FBI, and the three  anti-war activists were subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago. In Kelly's case, the warrant sought evidence on travel he did as part the Freedom Road Socialist Organization to Colombia, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria "or" Israel. The warrant for Sundin's home was similar but included a slightly different list of targeted groups.

Not since the heyday of anti-Vietnam War activism has the FBI taken such predatory moves against anti-war activists matched only by raids on Mexican immigrant workers, now with Arab-Americans rolled into the equation. If this is the kind of country you want to live in and have your children grow up in, do nothing at all.

Photo Credit: monaxle