WASHINGTON — The FBI gave inaccurate information to Congress and the public when it claimed a possible terrorism link to justify surveilling an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday in a report onthe bureau’s scrutiny of domestic activist groups.
Inspector General Glenn Fine said the FBI had no reason to expect that anyone of interest in a terrorism investigation would be present at the 2002 event sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, a nonviolent anti-war and anti discrimination group.
The surveillance was “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day,” the inspector general stated in a study of several FBI domestic terrorism probes of people affiliated with organizations such as Greenpeace and the Catholic Worker.
Earlier, in statements to Congress and in a press release, the FBI had described the Pittsburgh rally surveillance by one agent as related to a terrorism investigation.
In a letter to the inspector general, FBI Deputy Director Timothy Murphy said the FBI regrets that inaccurate information was provided to the FBI director and Congress regarding the basis for the agent’s presence at the rally.
Speaking generally of the FBI probes it studied, the inspector general said a domestic terrorism classification has a far-reaching effect, because people who are subjects of such investigations are normally placed on watch lists and their travels and interactions with law enforcement may be tracked.
The FBI has broad definitions that enable it to classify matters as domestic terrorism that actually are trespassing or vandalism, the inspector general said.
The inspector general said the evidence did not indicate that the FBI targeted individuals involved with the groups on the basis of their free-speech activities protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, but rather because of concerns about potential criminal acts.
Civil liberties groups and congressional Democrats had suggested that the FBI employed such tactics during the George W. Bush administration, improperly monitoring anti-war demonstrators and environmental groups, which triggered Fine’s review.
The inspector general also concluded that the factual basis for opening some investigations was weak and that in several instances there was little indication of any possible federal crime, as opposed to state crimes.
In some cases, the inspector general found that the FBI extended the duration of probes without adequate basis and in a few cases the FBI improperly retained information about the groups in its files, classifying some probes relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its “Acts of Terrorism” classification.
Among the groups monitored were the Thomas Merton Center, a Pittsburgh peace group; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; and Greenpeace USA. Activists affiliated with Greenpeace were improperly put on a terrorist watch list, the report said.
Murphy’s boss, FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, is cited in the report for unintentionally providing inaccurate congressional testimony about one of the investigations. Relying on information from other FBI officials, Mueller testified in 2006 that the FBI had information that “certain persons of interest” in international terrorism probes were expected to be present at a 2002 anti-war event sponsored by the Merton Center, Fine’s office said.
The FBI’s statements to Congress and the public were not true, said the inspector general, who found no evidence that the FBI had any information at the time of the event that any terrorism subject would be present.
Michael Drohan, president of the board of directors of the Merton Center, first founded in 1972 to oppose the Vietnam War, said he believes the FBI targeted the organization to scare others from joining its cause.
“It is somewhat troubling that in the name of combating terrorism, they would choose an organization that they know is bent on the principle of nonviolence,” Drohan said. “That they would use taxpayer money to surveil us, that’s a bit outrageous.”
According to the inspector general, the Office of the Chief Division Counsel in the FBI Pittsburgh Field Division created a document that said the surveillance was supposedly directed at an individual living in Pittsburgh who was of interest to the FBI based on evidence developed in a terrorism probe.
“We determined this version of events was not true,” said the inspector general.
The inaccurate statements may have been inadvertent, but the inspector general said it is more likely that the document reflected an effort to state a stronger justification for the surveillance.
Lying to Congress is a federal offense that the FBI investigates.
Information for this article was contributed by Pete Yost of the Associated Press; by Jerry Markon of The Washington Post; and by Richard A. Serrano of the Tribune Washington Bureau.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/21/2010