FBI Monitoring and Civil Liberties

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A confidential FBI memo has renewed accusations that the Bush administration is treading on civil rights. Local police have been told that anti-war protests could turn violent, and have been asked to report suspicious activities to the Terrorism Task Force. The American Civil Liberties Union says that blurs the line between terrorism and legitimate protest. It claims surveillance is having a chilling effect on free speech. Has the threat of terrorism become an excuse for suppressing dissent, or is surveillance necessary when dissenters could be terrorists in disguise? We hear from the FBI, the ACLU, the Justice Department, and a historian who has spent 28 years studying federal surveillance policy. Making News: India and Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire in Kashmir After 14 years of cross-border gun battles, India and Pakistan have declared a cease-fire in one of the world-s most dangerous conflicts-their dispute over Kashmir. Paul Watson, who reports from New Delhi for the Los Angeles Times, has more on history of the conflict, this week's accord and the external pressures that are pushing the two countries toward normalizing relations. Reporter's Notebook: The Woman behind Thanksgiving Day Pilgrims and Native Americans held the first feast of thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving Day wasn-t a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it in the midst of the Civil War. Laura Schenone, author of A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: a History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes and Remembrances, says he might not have done it without the relentless campaigning of a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale.
A confidential FBI memo has renewed accusations that the Bush administration is treading on civil rights. Local police have been told that anti-war protests could turn violent, and have been asked to report suspicious activities to the Terrorism Task Force. The American Civil Liberties Union says that blurs the line between terrorism and legitimate protest. It claims surveillance is having a chilling effect on free speech. Has the threat of terrorism become an excuse for suppressing dissent, or is surveillance necessary when dissenters could be terrorists in disguise? We hear from the FBI, the ACLU, the Justice Department, and a historian who has spent 28 years studying federal surveillance policy.
  • Making News: India and Pakistan Agree to Cease-Fire in Kashmir
    After 14 years of cross-border gun battles, India and Pakistan have declared a cease-fire in one of the world-s most dangerous conflicts-their dispute over Kashmir. Paul Watson, who reports from New Delhi for the Los Angeles Times, has more on history of the conflict, this week's accord and the external pressures that are pushing the two countries toward normalizing relations.
  • Reporter's Notebook: The Woman behind Thanksgiving Day
    Pilgrims and Native Americans held the first feast of thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving Day wasn-t a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it in the midst of the Civil War. Laura Schenone, author of A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: a History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes and Remembrances, says he might not have done it without the relentless campaigning of a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale.

Watson's article on Indian-Pakistani cease-fire

FBI intelligence memo on protest suppression tactics

FBI response to "media misinterpretation" of intelligence memo

Romero's article on FBI memo

USA Patriot Act of 2001

Hale's letter to President Lincoln

Credits

Host:

Warren Olney