Opinion: Standing together against US government witch hunt - FBI subpoenas for grand jury

EI – ...Since 24 September, two dozen activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities across the country have been handed subpoenas by the FBI to appear before a grand jury.

Yesterday, Maureen Clare Murphy, an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group in Chicago, and managing editor of The Electronic Intifada, became one of the latest to be subpoenaed by the federal government...

So far, all those who have previously been summoned have refused to appear before the grand jury. No one has been arrested or charged with any crime, nor has the government specified any alleged crimes that it might be investigating.

....A grand jury, no longer in use anywhere outside the US, is an investigative tool that allows the government to compel citizens to testify even if they are not suspected of any crime...

In June, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report documented 100 recent reported incidents in 33 states where "Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed" by federal and local law enforcement agencies "just for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public" ("Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity," 29 June 2010 [PDF]). Read more