Inside Higher Ed: Was big brother watching?”
Ever since September 11, civil liberties groups have expressed fear that law enforcement agencies would use the fight against terror groups as an excuse to monitor the activities of non-violent campus groups that oppose administration policies. And ever since 9/11, Bush administration officials have said that the civil liberties groups have nothing to fear and that law enforcement is focused on real terror threats.
Documents released by the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, however, suggest that some campus groups that have never engaged in terrorist activities have been monitored as if they were terror threats.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU obtained a Federal Bureau of Investigation report on a 2002 meeting involving the FBI, the Michigan State police and other law enforcement agencies to discuss groups in Michigan “thought to be involved in terrorist activities.”
Among the groups monitored was By Any Means Necessary, a University of Michigan group (also active elsewhere) devoted to defending affirmative action. The group has been active throughout the long legal debate over whether the university’s approach to affirmative action was constitutional, and in the two years since the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action, the group has continued to go strong. It is currently fighting a referendum to ban affirmative action in the state of Michigan.
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