University Records on Antiwar Meeting Sought

[question everything]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22431-2004Feb7.html

DES MOINES -- In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of antiwar activists.

In addition to the subpoena for Drake University, subpoenas were served on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury on Tuesday, the protesters said.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the subpoenas.

In addition to seeking records about who attended the forum, the school's subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based activist organization that sponsored the forum. The group, once accused of having ties to communism in the 1950s, announced Friday that it will ask a federal court on Monday to quash the subpoena.

(snip)

Those served subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an antiwar activist who visited Iraq in 2002.

[aquart]

1. Your Patriot Act in Action

Bet they never fly again.

[Fargin Ice Hole]

3. Ya, but not out of fear.................

After the judge's hammer falls, They will just get the Red card for life when they go through the airport screening process.

[420montana]

2. patriot acting in

progress. Anyone for flying low and avoiding the radar?

[LiberalFighter]

4. They don't name the judge

[ncrainbowgrrl]

5. This scares the crap out of me.

I don't even know where to start, but this hit a really raw nerve.

[Just Me]

8. I guess I am way past "scared" and now really PO'd!!!

Will this get to the American public unobstructed? I doubt it, but I intend to get it out there as much as humanly possible. If targeting peace activists fails to pull up a big red flag for people,...they are gonna be run over and not even know what hit them until it's over.

[NYC]

9. It should.

This is extremely serious.

[Bozita]

6. This fits well with the LBN thread about trials in Crawford, TX now

very scary stuff


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=353151

[pinto]

7. the start of "trickle down" repression, thanks Mr. Ashcroft et al....n/t

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. of everything i have read and heard on MTP today this upsets me the most

WTF? i have quite a few friends that visited Iraq many times during the 12 years of UN sanctions and during and after the US invasion. i am most concerned for them :scared:

[SoCalDem]

11. Face paint & fake IDs

Remember the Boston Tea Party?? They were *not* indians..

Protests will have cameras.. alter your appearance... carry a fake ID.. stay out of arrestable situations..

Or have a lawyer with you at all times :)

[Terwilliger]

12. string 'em up! thos anti-patriotic pinko commies!!!!

:nuke: it all

[metisnation]

13. They got the Guns

BUT WE GOT THE NUMBERS GONNA WIN YEAH WERE TAKING OVER COME ON!

~morrison~

[IndianaGreen]

14. They are Quakers and Catholics

That's some disguise those red rascals are using nowadays!

:eyes:

[burrowowl]

15. McCarthyism and the HCUA are coming again

This is just too damn scary!

[Eloriel]

16. And so it begins n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. I don't understand this at all

Maybe it's just crappy reporting, but there's no indication at all what the possible crime is. Surely the grand jury has to come up with some reason, however lame, to subpoena the people.

OK, so I'm naive (and British), so maybe I don't understand. The Des Moines Register more explicitly says that no-one knows, or is willing to say, what the investigation is.

Wow, even Fox News reports the AP story, and makes it sound like something from Kakfa or Orwell.
"A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding them from discussing the subpoena."

[salin]

18. It is that gag order - and the lack of info around the whole thing

that is so disturbing. Let us hope that once again - in the end - John Ashcroft and his band of merry rights-deniars will be rebuked and turned back... and will have such a public debacle on their hands (remember he claimed that the 'fears of misuse of the Patriot Act' were hysterical and unfounded) that it will derail ANY continuation of the Patriot Act let alone the Ashcroft/White House push for parts of the Patriot Act 2.