Dispatches from the privacy front, Federal Division

The New York Times reported on Monday that as the result of an FOIA suit brought by the ACLU and other groups against the FBI, it's been discovered that the feds have

collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest over the administration's policies....

A smaller batch of documents already turned over by the government sheds light on the interest of F.B.I. counterterrorism officials in protests surrounding the Iraq war and last year's Republican National Convention.

The federal cops won't say what's in the files and insist oh, my, yes, it's all quite innocent and we would never ever ever do anything to hinder your blessed Constitutional rights, how could you even think such a thing?

But officials at the two groups said they were troubled by the disclosure.

"I'm still somewhat shocked by the size of the file on us," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the A.C.L.U. "Why would the F.B.I. collect almost 1,200 pages on a civil rights organization engaged in lawful activity? What justification could there be, other than political surveillance of lawful First Amendment activities?"

What, indeed.

In a press release, the ACLU said it was urging the court to order the immediate release of the documents, calling the government's contention that it could take nearly a year to "process" the material "a stalling tactic."

The suit is seeking FBI records on 150 groups that have protested Shrub's policies. The ACLU, which in an earlier suit obtained documents revealing abuses inflicted on prisoners of the War on Terror^{(c)(reg.)(pat.pend.)}, says FBI records on the groups could total tens of thousands of pages by the time all is said and done.

Footnote: The Fourth of July has come and gone for this year, but read this anyway. If it doesn't make your soul hurt, you are a lost cause.