http://www.stopfbi.net/about/timeline
2010
September 24: Over 70 FBI agents simultaneously raid homes and serve subpoenas to prominent antiwar and international solidarity activists in Minneapolis, MN, Chicago, IL, and Grand Rapids, MI.
FBI agents seize documents, computers, cell phones, passports, family photos and children's artwork.
FBI agents also visit and attempt to question activists in Milwaukee, WI, Durham, NC, and San Jose, CA.
Fourteen subpoenas to a federal grand jury in Chicago are issued, ordering the subpoenaed activists to appear before the grand jury on October 5, 12 and 19, 2010.
Search warrants and subpoenas indicate that the FBI is looking for evidence related to the "material support of terrorism"
October 5, 12, 19: Each of the fourteen subpoenaed activists declines to appear before the grand jury, pleading his or her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The U.S. Attorney's office temporarily suspends the activists' subpoenas.
November 2: The U.S. Attorney's office notified lawyers that three of the original 14 people subpoenaed would have their subpoenas reactivated. Later that week, Anh Pham, Tracy Molm and Sarah Martin were named as the three to be reactivated.
December 3: Three new women in Chicago are subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury on January 25, 2011. The three went on a delegation to Palestine together in the summer 2009. Two are Palestinian-American and the other one Sarah Smith is Jewish. Smith made this public statement. This brings the total number of subpoenas to 17.
December 8: Two more anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists in Chicago are subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury on January 25, 2011. This brings the subpoena total to 19.
December 21 (Chicago): FBI delivers four new subpoenas to Palestine solidarity activists in Chicago, including Maureen Murphy, a journalist and organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago. Murphy released this statement after receiving a subpoena. The subpoenas order them to a January 25, 2011 grand jury date. This brings the total number of activists subpoenaed to 23.
December 21 (Minneapolis): Dozens of activists and progressive organizations in Minnesota get together to request a copy of their FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to attempt to learn how broad the surveillance and harassment of progressive movements goes.
2011
January 12: At a press conference in Minneapolis, activists announce that a law enforcement officer infiltrated the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee (AWC). The infiltrator went by the name Karen Sullivan, joined the AWC in April 2008, and about a year later she joined the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
January 25: Grand jury hearing date scheduled of the 9 additional people subpoenaed in December. 50 protests in 49 cities take place across the United States and the world. The nine release a statement announcing that they will not appear before the grand jury.
May 6: Bank accounts of Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima at TCF Bank are frozen. A call-in campaign was immediately lauched to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitgerald's office, which claimed they didn't initiate the freeze. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which has the power to freeze assets, also said they were not responsible.
May 10: TCF Bank admits they had unilaterally frozen Hatem and Naima Abudayyeh's bank accounts, and after days of pressure they finally return the Abudayyehs' money.
May 12: House Judiciary Committee voted to reauthorize provisions of the PATRIOT Act. In the debate, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas spoke against the PATRIOT Act. To show that the PATRIOT Act had led to abuses of civil liberties, she pointed to the case of the 23 anti-war, labor and international solidarity activists facing FBI and grand jury repression. Her office requested a personal letter from some of the Midwest activists being subjected to this investigation, and submitted into the Congressional record this letter from Joe Iosbaker and Stephanie Weiner.
May 13: Rep. John Lewis (5th District, Georgia) sends a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder about the FBI investigation of anti-war activists.
May 17: Carlos Montes's Los Angeles-area home is raided at 5:00 a.m. by a Los Angeles County Sheriff SWAT team together with FBI agents. His door is broken down, house is ransacked, and his computer, cell phone, computer disks, photos, and 44 years worth of political activist files were taken. He was arrested and FBI agents immediately attempted to question him about the case of anti-war activists in the Midwest who had been raided on 9/24/10, and about Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
May 18: CSFR press conference: activists who had been raided in Minneapolis on September 24, 2010 announce the release of a file of secret FBI documents that the FBI apparently accidentally left behind in the raid on Mick Kelly and Linden Gawboy's apartment in Minneapolis. Gawboy stumbled across the file on April 30th while cleaning out a file cabinet (during the FBI raid, agents went through large numbers of Kelly's files, and they likely got their file mixed up in the shuffle of so many papers). The FBI documents reveal the operations plan for the raid, their military hardware and preparations for the raid, the questions they intended to ask the anti-war activists about their political ideas and activities, and more. CSFR statement on the FBI documents.
*** this is just posting of bits of the timeline that referred to Fitzgerald's office.
I hope this might mean the case will be dropped.. it would nice of these peace activists could get back to a normal life.
= new reply since forum marked as read
