ACTIIVISTS WIN BIG AGAINST THE FBI
by Karen Picket, ASJE board member
Twelve years after the explosion of a motion-triggered bomb planted in Judi Bari's car in 1990, a jury in Oakland, California returned a verdict in favor of Bari and fellow activist Darryl Cherney in a historic civil rights case against the FBI and Oakland Police. The lawsuit charged false arrest, illegal searches and First Amendment violations stemming from a smear campaign reminiscent of the FBI's COINTEL-PRO operations against political radicals, dating back to J. Edgar Hoover's attacks on labor and the Left decades ago.
At the time of the bomb attack that nearly took Bari's life [she later died of
breast cancer in 1997 at the age of 47], she and other Earth First activists
were organizing Redwood Summer, a campaign invoking the spirit and tactics of
the civil rights campaign of the 60s. Judi's background was in labor organizing.
The alliance she built with California's timber workers laid the groundwork for
groups such as ASJE. Not only was she organizing millworkers in a non-union shop
and investigating plant safety issues, she educated the forest activist movement,
shifting focus onto the CEO policy makers rather than the workers.
Judi and Darryl were blamed for the bomb, dealing a devastating blow to their political organizing, but charges were never pursued for lack of evidence. Because the FBI and police chose to focus on EFI, the bomber has never been found. Bari's colleagues continue to pursue the case.
The jury delivered an award of $4.4 million in damages. This verdict is an indictment of the FBI's gross interference with the people's right to dissent at a time when Attorney General Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller and the Bush adminsitration are aggregating hugh power to themselves and the FBI to spy on legitimate groups and organizers and infringe on the Constitutional rights of the public.
Further info can be found at www.judibari.org.
Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
1125 SE Madison, Suite 100-D, Portland, Oregon 97214
Phone: (503) 736-9777; Fax: (503) 736-9776; Email: admin@asje.org; Website: www.asje.org
The ASJU is a network of individuals and organizations dedicated to building a world where nature is protected, the worker is respected, and unrestrained corporate power is rejected, through grassroots education, organization, and action.