http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1138699832122070.xml&coll=2Homeland Security cars bracket outdoor protest at federal building
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Brian Albrecht
Plain Dealer Reporter
...It was guerrilla theater staged outside the Celebrezze Federal Building about 7:30 a.m. by the Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC).
Some two dozen members of NOAC and other groups affiliated with the coalition dressed in exaggerated spy gear to protest government surveillance of a NOAC meeting in Cleveland last November, and similar monitoring of other peace groups, including the Quakers.
The "spies" were bracketed by Homeland Security cars parked behind them, and security keeping a watchful eye in front of them from the building on East Ninth Street and Lakeside Avenue...
Walt Nicholes, 82, and his wife, Nina McLellan, 70, of Cleveland Heights, sported homemade cardboard-tube "binoculars" for the spoof. But both said they've been around long enough to see some potentially disturbing trends developing, reminiscent of the bygone "Red Scare" days of the 1950s led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy...
http://www.noacinfo.org/Posted on Tue, Jan. 24, 2006
ACLU seeks government information on alleged spying in Ohio
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/13701378.htmM.R. KROPKO
Associated Press
CLEVELAND - The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio requested information Tuesday from the government about whether it spied on two anti-war groups and an attorney for a man suspected of terrorism connections.
ACLU officials said at news conference that members of the anti-war groups want to know whether two meetings were attended by government agents. One meeting was last year in Akron by the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, and the another was in 2004 in Cleveland by the Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition.
The ACLU filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Department of Defense, Justice Department, the FBI and police seeking records that document any collection of information about the groups.
Gary Daniels, the ACLU's litigation coordinator, said the ACLU became involved because the groups were included on a Defense Department classified database of information about suspicious people and activity inside the United States as reported by NBC News...
ACLU of Ohio:
http://www.acluohio.org