March 14, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org NEW
YORK -- In light of recent revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and local law enforcement are spying on people engaged in peaceful political and
religious activity, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed Freedom of
Information requests today on behalf of itself and 14 of New York's most
prominent political and religious groups to determine whether the FBI is spying
on them.
"New York has been the center of anti-war activity
and is the home of scores of vocal Muslim groups," said Donna Lieberman,
Executive Director of the NYCLU. "Given what we now know about the government
spying on political and religious groups around the country, we have every
reason to believe that such abuses of power are being committed in New
York."
The NYCLU filed requests on behalf of 9/11 Families for
Peaceful Tomorrows; the American Friends Service Committee, Upper NY State Area
Office; Brooklyn Parents for Peace; the Buffalo War Resisters League; anti-war
activist and United for Peace and Justice National Coordinator Leslie Cagan; the
Council on American-Islamic Relations, NY Chapter; the Council on Peoples
Organization; MetroJustice (Rochester); the NY Immigration Coalition; Peace
Action of Central NY; People for the American Way of NY; People for Animal
Rights (Syracuse); Veterans for Peace Chapter 128; the Western NY Peace Center
(Buffalo); and the NYCLU itself.
"The Freedom of Information Act
is a powerful tool to force the government to disclose information it doesn't
want to disclose," said Corey Stoughton, an NYCLU staff attorney. "Today's
requests will pull back the veil of secrecy that the National Security Agency,
the Department of Defense and the FBI have used to hide unlawful surveillance."
The NYCLU filed its requests on the same day that the ACLU of
Pennsylvania released a series of documents the affiliate received in response
to its own similar FOIA requests. These documents show that the FBI's Joint
Terrorism Task Force is spying on the Thomas Merton Center, a peace and justice
organization in Pittsburgh.
"It scares us to know that our
government spies on peaceful, law-abiding political activity," said John
Leinung, a member of the Steering Committee for 9/11 Families for Peaceful
Tomorrows. The pro-peace organization was founded by family members of
9/11 victims and is seeking information as part of today's FOIA requests. "If
our freedoms were under attack on 9/11, then we who lost so much that day must
work to protect those freedoms from both outright attack and slow erosion."
Copies of the FOIA and Freedom of Information Law requests filed
by the NYCLU today and information about the groups included in those requests
available online at
www.nyclu.org. For
details and legal papers regarding the FOIA requests filed by ACLU affiliates
around the country, including a list of clients, go to
www.aclu.org/spyfiles
