HeHateY

A federal investigation expanded Thursday as prosecutors subpoenaed a fourth peace activist to appear before a grand jury and secured a court order forbidding Drake University officials to discuss a demand for information about a November antiwar conference on campus.

Federal authorities so far have refused to disclose what the investigation is about or what laws might have been broken. But an officer with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force served a subpoena to Wendy Vasquez of Des Moines on Thursday morning.

(snip)

Vasquez was among dozens of activists who attended a Nov. 15 conference at Drake called "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!"

http://desmoinesregister.com/news/st.../23463005.html

TacomaRain

These people might do a service to themselves and their fellow protesters by reading up on the Patriot Act and all of its ramifications. Let's just say that J.Edgar Hoover would have loved this act. This is a classic example of the Patriot Act being used against our own citizens. You may be next.

FliesWay2Much

...and to think that Drake was the Alma Mater of Ronald Reagan...

Where does Harkin come down on this issue? I'd like to think he'd be screaming bloody murder.

whirledtraveler

Does anyone know where Kerry stands on it, considering that he seems like he'll be the alternative if his pants have been hitched as tight as he says they've been?

GUWonder

The pollsters are telling Kerry to not go publicly against the USA PATRIOT Act but to go after Ashcroft instead (as a man who lost to a dead man and now wants to be the Ghost chasing every American). Edwards and Kerry are not against the Act in any meaningful public manner. Edwards is actually still in favor of it (after all he co-sponsored it, IIRC).

I know Clark was complaining about this Act as early as mid-Nov. 2001.

PresRDC

Not saying it is justified, but I suspect the suspicion surrounding these people has less to do with their political stance than it does with their having visited Iraq while Saddam was still in power.

fcrit

Maybe it's "peace activists" that should have been in quotes - dig a little. "The conference was hosted by the Drake Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild" - the NLG is a radical left organization which, while not explicitly communist, serves as an organizing group for many such groups. The group advocates acts of civil disobedience, including vandalism, in oppostion to US actions overseas, has supported the Sandinistas and other communist groups in South and Central America, and is allied with World Workers Party and ANSWER. Bernadine Dohrn, founder of the Weather Underground, was an NLG staffer. Like many "peace" groups, NLG is tightly allied with anti-US, anti-capitalist organizations. They know exactly what they're doing, and they're tightly allied with many groups who advocate the overthrow of the US.