FBI ACLU rails against files on protesters

The ACLU said files on nonviolent protesters were classified as terrorism.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The names and license plate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado says.
The Denver-based ACLU obtained federal documents on a 2002 Colorado Springs protest and a 2003 anti-war rally under the Freedom of Information Act.
ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said the documents show the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force wastes resources generating files on "nonviolent protest."
"These documents confirm that the names and license plate numbers of several dozen peaceful protesters who committed no crime are now in a JTTF file marked 'counterterrorism,"' he said.
"This kind of surveillance of First Amendment activities has serious consequences. Law-abiding Americans may be reluctant to speak out when doing so means that their names will wind up in an FBI file."
FBI Special Agent Monique Kelso, the spokeswoman for the agency in Colorado, disputed the claim the task force wastes resources gathering information on protesters.
"We do not open cases or monitor cases just based purely on protests," she said Thursday. "It's our job to protect American civil rights. We don't surveil cases just to do that. We have credible information."
The documents cover the June 2002 protest of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association convention at The Broadmoor hotel and an anti-war demonstration at Palmer Park in February 2003, the ACLU said.