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Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering letting go of the few restrictions on the FBI that protect citizens from unreasonable searches and surveillance, and possibly return to the abuses and criminal behavior associated with the J. Edgar Hoover era in what the NY Times described as "another step by the Bush administration to modify civil-liberties protections as a means of defending the country against terrorists.

"The relaxation of the guidelines would follow administration measures to establish military tribunals to try foreigners accused of terrorism; to seek out and question 5,000 immigrants, most of them Muslims, who have entered the United States since January 2000; and to arrest more than 1,200 people, nearly all of whom are unconnected to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and hold hundreds of them in jail ."

If the attorney general gets his way, there will probably be an escalation in the harassment and prosecution of political activists, something common since the 60's under the FBI's secret COINTELPRO program. Peace and civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. , were regularly kept under surveillance, and in some extremes individuals were framed with false evidence, or were murdered like Black Panther Fred Hampton . While a Congressional order supposedly ended the program in 1971, it continued well into the present with the incarcerations of Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal , and also the framing and attempted murder of environmental activist Judi Bari . More recently, the Seattle IMC received a visit from the FBI this past spring, and individual volunteers have also been contacted.

Thursday, Ashcroft tried to defend these tactics before Congress, and claimed that his critics "aid terrorists."

On Monday, 75 members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) completed their cross-country trip from Immokalee, Florida to Irvine, California; where members of the Coalition are commencing a hunger strike outside Taco Bell World Headquarters. The CIW is made up of the largely-migrant workers that pick the tomatoes used by Taco Bell; and they are calling for a boycott of the giant fast-food chain until the workers earn a decent wage. UPDATE: Day 2 of the Hunger Strike.

On Friday, Feb. 28th, there will be a convergence outside Taco Bell Headquarters from noon to 4pm in support of the CIW and the hunger-strikers. Here's a schedule of this week's CIW solidarity events in Irvine.

Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

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