Posted on 04/27/2005 5:53:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and members of a university peace group filed information requests with the FBI and the Fresno County Sheriff's Department on Wednesday after learning that undercover officers attended a student lecture.
University officials acknowledged that three campus police officers and three Fresno County Sheriff's deputies attended a November 2004 talk by animal rights activist Gary Yourofsky at California State University, Fresno. The students and the civil rights organization filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI and a Public Records Act request with the Fresno County Sheriff's Department to find out more.
The department's surveillance policy is already being reviewed by the state Attorney General's office after deputies allegedly infiltrated Peace Fresno in 2003.
The local anti-war group only learned Aaron Kilner, an undercover sheriff's deputy, had been regularly attending their meetings when his photo ran in a newspaper after he died. The case took a larger scope when it was highlighted in Michael Moore's anti-war documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11."
University officials said in a statement that the plainclothes officers attended the event to ensure its safety.
"Our campus police always work to ensure safety for all involved - speakers, guests and students - and to maintain an environment that allows the free expression of ideas," the school said.
But the students who sprawled out on blankets in front of the university president's office, ready to embark on a 48-hour hunger strike, said the tactics were "intimidating."
"If they're there for safety, they should come in their uniforms, doing their job," said Ruth Obel-Jorgensen, president of the campus peace group.
Students said they learned from university officials that there were undercover officers at the 60-person lecture only after months of asking and being given different responses.
The presence of the officers at a student event is a violation of state law, said Mark Schlosberg, the Police Practices Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California.
"I hope the university and the Sheriff's Department will come clean about what happened," Schlosberg said. "Our concern is that the incidents that we learn about are only the tip of the iceberg."
The attorney general's office said law enforcement usually needs probable cause to gather intelligence.
But "there are exceptions to every rule," spokesman Nathan Barankin said. "You have to analyze every situation very closely."
Barankin said so far the attorney general was only asked to review the surveillance of Peace Fresno.
Fresno County Sheriff Richard Pierce did not immediately return several calls for comment.
The Anti-American Communist Legal Union continues it perverted use of our judiciary, and its pervasive threat-factor of legal action, to further its attack on American life. We can only expect to hear/see more of it, until the subversive ACLU is out of business in this country. I wonder if they have made the official subversive organization list of the government yet? (chuckle) -- that should have happened a long time ago.
That group's probably as peaceful as that Air America ad on SS that sounds like GW is being shot at. Liberals are so tolerant, you know. ; )
The ACLU never disappoints...
So: What these buttheads are saying is that any police officer who attends one of their functions as a private citizen is breaking the law? Bullsheit.
My give-a-damn's busted.
The ACLU is a communist front group.
So: What these buttheads are saying is that any police officer who attends one of their functions as a private citizen is breaking the law? Bullsheit.
The Justice Dept. needs to bring RICO to bear against the ACLU.
Always has been , always will be.
Their sister orgs like ANSWER, La Raza, DSA,, etc ,, all have a common goal. The destruction of the American political experiment and imposition of the "people's" will..
I was a law student and campus cop at the same time. I went to any damn meeting I wanted on my own time.
More people have to understand what they are about. Strange that they get money from the US government.
----
We are, i.e., seeding our own destruction as a nation under God if this continues, and you think 'they' don't know that..
Kinda like they did to the MMP? They just hate it when their own tactics are used against them. *chuckle*
the ACLU is dying slowly but surely. Not fast enough though. Those crackpots have no idea that they are watched 24 hours a day and rightly so.
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