FBI Raids Anti-War Activists In Four Cities

The FBI raided an organization called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization believing there were links to terrorist activity.

The Minneapolis raids targeted peace activists who were active in protesting the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul — among them Jessica Sundin and Mick Kelly, organizers of the massive march on the first day of the RNC. Travel and phone records were reportedly taken from their homes.

At a home on Park Avenue in Minneapolis, FBI agents arrived early this morning with a warrant. The person who answered the door says that the FBI pushed past her and began searching every room of the home, from attic to basement, looking at CDs, DVDs, books, photos and papers. Before leaving, the FBI issued subpoenas for the peace activists to appear before a Grand Jury in Chicago on Oct. 12.

One of the subpoenas ordered the activists to produce  documents and photos of any trip to Columbia, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian Territories or Israel and any records of payments to “Hatem Abudayyeh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC).”

Kelly denies that he was involved in any illegal activity.

A raid was also conducted on the home of Meredith Aby, another local antiwar leader who was frequently the spokeswoman for the march on the GOP convention. A fourth raid took place at the home of Tracy Molm, a leading activist in Students for a Democratic Society, an organization at the University of Minnesota, and a fifth warrant was executed on the upper duplex residence of Anh Pham, an antiwar activist.

Is this shades of the Vietnam era and the days of J. Edgar Hoover?

Ted Dooley, an attorney, said he had reviewed the search warrant issued in the raid on Kelly’s apartment. “It’s a probe into the political beliefs of American citizens and to any organization anywhere that opposes the American imperial design,” he said.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.