Ashcroft’s War on Protesters

If you haven’t already seen this front page story from today’s NYTimes, then now might be a good time. Apparently the FBI has spent the past couple of weeks interviewing, and in some cases subpoenaing, people that it thinks are likely to attend protests at the Republican convention in NY.

“The message I took from it,” said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, “was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, ‘hey, we’re watching you.'”

When someone in the FBI complained that such tactics were inappropriate, Ashcroft’s legal office said that the tactics were fine. It’s amazing how, day after day, something new reminds me why I am so chagrined at George Bush’s version of America.

Kash