Given the new administration and its influence on our country, it seems
highly unlikely that the SWP can win the case at this point.
Miriam
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From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
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Sent: Monday, January 23, 2017 9:18 PM
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Subject: [blind-democracy] US gov't says SWP should have to turn over
contributors' names
http://themilitant.com/2017/8104/810405.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 4 January 23, 2017
(front page)
US gov't says SWP should have to turn over contributors' names
BY EMMA JOHNSON
The Socialist Workers Party received notice from the Federal Election
Commission Jan. 5 that the agency intends to reject the party's application
to extend its hard-fought exemption from having to file the names of
contributors to their election campaign with the government.
"The Commission concludes that the public interest would be served by
disclosure of SWP's contributors and vendors," the FEC's draft opinion
states, "and that the SWP has not demonstrated a reasonable probability that
disclosing its contributors and vendors will subject those persons to
threats, harassment, or reprisals."
The party won exemption in 1974 and has successfully won extension six times
since.
The party's exemption fight is part of the broader class battle for workers
and working-class organizations to engage in political activity - including
election campaigns - free from spying and disruption by government cops, the
bosses and other enemies of the working class.
The commission has set a March 13 deadline for the party to respond.
The SWP's attorneys filed a request with the FEC Oct. 31 to renew the
exemption from having to disclose the names, addresses and occupations of
contributors giving more than $200 to its candidates, as well as the names
of the campaign's vendors.
The SWP has faced an "extraordinary history of government and private
threats, violence and harassment," states the party's application for
extension filed by Michael Krinsky and Lindsey Frank of the prominent civil
liberties firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman.
For decades the FBI and other police agencies targeted the SWP, seeking to
disrupt its activity in the labor movement, the fight for Black rights and
the fight against imperialist war. The scope of the operation was revealed
by a landmark 13-year legal battle against the government, won by the SWP in
1986.
The FBI was forced to admit in court that between 1960 and 1976 it carried
out at least 204 "black bag jobs" - burglaries of party offices - deployed
1,300 undercover informers and collected over 8 million documents on the
party and its members and supporters.
The FBI's Cointelpro Disruption Program, and similar operations targeting
the Communist Party, Black Panther Party and other groups, were exposed and
pushed back by the mass proletarian struggle to overthrow Jim Crow, the
fight against Washington's war against the people of Vietnam and for the
rights of women. The SWP lawsuit helped reveal the character of and deal
blows to the government's political police.
In applying to extend the exemption over the last three decades, the SWP has
documented how government spy agencies, local cops, bosses and rightist
forces have continued to probe and attack the party. From 1990 to 2012, the
FEC granted continued exemption from disclosure on those grounds.
However, both in 2009 and 2013 some FEC officials began to say the SWP
exemption should be eliminated. They argued that socialist ideas were
becoming more "mainstream" and the party's exemption - the only one granted
by the agency - was no longer justified.
The FEC argues that the SWP no longer qualifies because "the documented
instances of harassment have steadily decreased in both quantity and
severity."
Continued gov't harassment, spying
"There is well-established evidence that the SWP has been subject to
threats, harassment and reprisals from both government and private actors
for more than 70 years - from at least 1941 to 2012," Krinsky and Frank
wrote. This alone is more than sufficient evidence that the exemption is
needed, they say, especially along with the continued evidence of
surveillance of political activity that the SWP supports and takes part in.
They then cite 33 specific examples of continued harassment, threats and
reprisals over the last four years.
Among them is a break-in at the home of a well-known party candidate in
Omaha, Nebraska, where nothing was stolen but a smart phone containing
political contacts; smashing the window of party headquarters in Los Angeles
after a public forum against Washington's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a
series of incidents of harassment by cops and threats by individuals aimed
at supporters campaigning door to door across the country; examples of
individuals who expressed support for the party but declined to sign
petitions or subscribe to the Militant for fear of reprisal from bosses or
the government; and ongoing attempts to ban workers behind bars from
receiving the Militant, which editorially supports SWP candidates, because
of its political content.
The application highlights the escalation of spy agencies targeting unions
and political activity in recent years. While government spies and
provocateurs no longer claim the "Communist menace" justifies their
violations of constitutional rights, today they say the "war against terror"
means they should continue the same assaults on political rights. FBI-run
Fusion Centers, Joint Terrorism Task Forces, special state police units and
city Muslim squads, have expanded across the country, as well as electronic
surveillance by outfits like the National Security Agency.
"Indeed, this current surveillance is eerily similar to the extensive
surveillance of the SWP by the FBI," the two lawyers write, pointing to
recent revelations of spying on protests against cop killings, strikes and
lockouts, actions for $15 and a union, and attacks on mosques and Muslim
communities. The SWP champions all these fights and SWP members participate
in them.
The FEC makes no attempt to counter or even discuss this documentation.
It simply ignores it.
"In today's growing capitalist economic crisis, the rulers in Washington
increasingly fear the working class, seeing larger class battles breaking
out down the road," John Studer, SWP national campaign director, told the
Militant. "That's why they seek to expand spy and disruption operations
today."
FEC says SWP too successful
The commission draft claims that the SWP no longer qualifies as a "minor"
party, which is one basis for an exemption, because the party's
2016 presidential ticket of Alyson Kennedy and Osborne Hart received some
12,000 votes and working people contributed $80,000 to their campaign. The
SWP received more votes in a number of previous elections, but that was
never a reason to deny the exemption.
No one can argue the SWP rivals the Democrats and Republicans today.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump got more than 60 million votes each and
raised and spent billions of dollars.
"It's true the SWP is getting a wide hearing on workers' doorsteps,"
Studer said. "We wish we were bigger and could organize the working class to
challenge the propertied rulers for political power.
"But that's a ways down the road," he said, "and until then we deserve the
protection of the exemption for our contributors."
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