A people’s victory against gov’t harassment

After two years of courtroom battle, a very significant people’s victory was won in a Boston court on March 7 in cases regard ing longtime anti-war activist and former political prisoner Richard Picariello.

Picariello was acquitted on all charges in the first of the two cases. And the defense motion was granted to dismiss “with prejudice” the second case arising out of Picariello’s arrest at a protest at a 2004 Bush fundraiser in Boston because of prosecution failure to provide required discovery information. These cases were a clear attempt to criminalize political protest.

At the heart of the cases was a decades-long campaign of surveillance and harassment against Picariello. The dedicated defense team headed by people’s lawyer John Pavlos was unswerving in pursuing the evidence of this, following the trail from a memo unearthed early in the case revealing involvement in the case by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), an arm of the FBI.

The ensuing struggle to learn about the police surveillance continued over 16 pre-trial hearings, sessions before federal judges, and the trial beginning March 6 and ending March 7.

In the course of that struggle, the U.S. attorney as well as the Boston Police Depart ment’s attorney appeared in court and asserted that the information on the surveillance activity on Picariello sought by the defense was privileged and would not be provided no matter how relevant it might be to his defense. John Reinstein, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, joined the team to argue the defense’s right to this information, and to appeal it before a federal judge, but the state continued to stonewall.

In the end, the case was able to open a window on the workings of Bush’s steady consolidation of secret police powers. Despite the denial of the appeal to federal court, the defense team succeeded in forcing the state to produce two police officers directly involved in the Boston Police Intelligence Unit and the JTTF to provide testimony and be cross-examined by the defense team. The officers admitted to the surveillance of Picariello going back many years and including folders of material from the 1970s. On Aug. 26, 2004, during the Republican National Convention protests, the New York Daily News published Picariello’s picture on its front page implying he was a “terrorist” for engaging in anti-war activities. In the RNC protest article the News demonized and libeled Picariello for his protest activities.

At Picariello’s trial, officers described the centralization and coordination of pol ice agencies under the JTTF, and daily or weekly briefings. They also confirmed that among those being surveilled are the International Action Center, Workers World Party, ANSWER and many other progressive and revolutionary individuals and organizations in New England. The names of specific police officers involved and their role were also revealed.

“These charges were an attempt to chill political activism and were directed not just against me but at all progressives. The court struggle produced a victory in the battle against it by forcing a crack in the wall of secrecy around the growing secret police state apparatus of the Bush administration. This solidarity showed an understanding that we must stand as one in unity whenever the state attempts to crush our rights and stop the movement dead in its tracks. We need to continue the support shown in my case particularly in relation to Arabs and Muslims continuing to fall victim to the Bush administration’s sweeps,” Picariello told his supporters as he left the courthouse.

He acknowledged the crucial role of the continuous support he has received from dedicated political activists who turned out at each of the trials.