SWP suit against FBI: A victory for working people

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A federal court has declared it illegal for the FBI to harass those whose views are opposed by the government. Federal District Judge Thomas Griesa's decision outlaws for the first time the use of FBI undercover informers and agents against political activists.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), which initiated the suit against the FBI, were granted a judgment against the United States totaling $264,000 for damages.

Of this amount, $42,500 are in compensation for disruption by the FBI of the SWP and YSA, $96,500 for surreptitious entries (burglaries), and $125,000 for the FBI's use of informants.

Judge Griesa's decision documents the outrageous violation of the SWP's rights, starting with a 1940 directive from thenPresident Roosevelt to the FBI. Following this and subsequent directives from Roosevelt and every succeeding U.S. president, the FBI relentlessly hounded SWP members, causing loss of jobs and housing.

An FBI memorandum, Judge Griesa noted, stated that one of its aims was to "enhance the paranoia in these circles and [to] further serve to get the point across [that] there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox." But Griesa fails to note that it is the American people who the FBI intended should get the point!

This, of course, was and remains the real reason motivating the capitalist governments, both Democratic and Republican, which set and maintained this policy. Not content with their monopoly over the government, the news, and educational media-and every other instrument of the state—they aggressively use their secret police to intimidate the American people and block socialists from gaining a hearing.

In the years between 1960 and 1976, the FBI admitted to a rate of informants as high as 11 percent of the SWP membership! The ostensible justification for such intensive investigation of a political group is to find evidence of illegal activities. But throughout the entire period of FBI "investigation," not a single case was made against the SWP or YSA charging violation of any federal law.

The federal court decision, expanding the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy, is an important victory for working people and democratic rights in general. It is now declared illegal to carry out burglaries, to steal-or copy private papers or plant microphones or tap phones or assign agents or hire informants-to disrupt the activities of the SWP or, in principle, any other group of political activists.

From now on, any such activity by the FBI or by any other cop agency will be in violation of the court ruling. Political groups will now be on strong ground to demand the protection of the courts against such invasions of privacy and But no one dare assume that these attacks against constitutionally guaranteed rights have ceased or will cease. Judge Griesa's opinion, itself, leaves ample loopholes for the legal reimplementation of a new wave of harassment and disruption of political rights by governmental agencies.

Judge Griesa's decision is seriously flawed by his dismissal of a series of claims against the government on technical grounds-not to mention the surprisingly low compensation he ordered to be paid to the SWP.

And Griesa's refusal to issue an injunction against "the future accumulation of records [harassment and disruption] of the political activities of the SWP," also on technical grounds, leaves the door open for continued—but less crude-violations of constitutional rights by the FBI and other secret police agencies.

Even so, members of Socialist Action-many of whom had been members of the SWP throughout this period of intensive FBI harassment and disruption —are especially gratified at this affirmation of political rights by a federal court.

However limited and flawed this decision may be, it will provide socialists a legal weapon in defense of democratic rights. And, perhaps most important, it constitutes an implicit indictment of the tiny minority of capitalists who once again prove they will use any means necessary to maintain their social and political dictatorship over U.S. society.—SOCIALIST ACTION POLITICAL COMMITTEE

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