{"id":4068,"date":"2011-12-01T13:44:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T20:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4068"},"modified":"2011-12-01T13:44:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T20:44:42","slug":"fbi-collecting-information-on-citizens-protected-by-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4068","title":{"rendered":"FBI Collecting Information on Citizens Protected by the First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FBI Storing Information on Activities Protected by the First Amendment, Memos Obtained by ACLU Show<\/strong><br \/>\n01 December, 2011 &#8211; ACLU<\/p>\n<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br \/>\nCONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org<\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK \u2013 The FBI has been illegally using its community outreach programs to secretly collect and store information about activities protected by the First Amendment for intelligence purposes, according to FBI documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe trust that community outreach efforts aim to create is undermined when the FBI exploits these programs to gather intelligence on the very members of the religious and community organizations agents are meeting with,\u201d said Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent. \u201cThe FBI should be honest with community organizations about what information is being collected during meetings and purge any improperly collected information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>FOIA documents showing instances of inappropriate intelligence gathering include:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 San Francisco FBI memos, written in 2007 and 2008 by agents who attended Ramadan Iftar dinners under the guise of the FBI\u2019s mosque outreach program, documenting participants\u2019 names, conversations and presentations. The 2008 memo also recorded participants\u2019 contact information and descriptions of their opinions and associations.<br \/>\n\u2022 A 2009 San Jose, Calif. FBI memo describing FBI participation in a career day sponsored by an Assyrian community organization. Agents detailed conversations with three community leaders and members about their opinions, backgrounds and charitable activities.<br \/>\n\u2022 A 2007 San Jose, Calif. FBI memo describing a mosque outreach meeting attended by 50 people representing 27 Muslim community and religious organizations, identifying each person by name and organization and analyzing their \u201cdemographics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExcept under certain special circumstances, the Privacy Act bars the FBI from maintaining records like these describing how Americans exercise their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association,\u201d said Nusrat Choudhury, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. \u201cCongress passed this law to prevent records obtained by the government for one purpose from being used for another reason without a person\u2019s consent, but that is precisely what the FBI has done.   <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/national-security\/foia-documents-show-fbi-illegally-collecting-intelligence-under-guise-community\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D4068&amp;text=FBI+Collecting+Information+on+Citizens+Protected+by+the+First+Amendment&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FBI Storing Information on Activities Protected by the First Amendment, Memos Obtained by ACLU Show 01 December, 2011 &#8211; ACLU FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org NEW YORK \u2013 The FBI has been illegally using its community outreach programs to secretly collect and store information about activities protected by the First Amendment for intelligence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=4068#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2123],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}