A recent article on Salon.com has uncovered systematic government harassment of anyone suspected of supporting Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.
From the piece:
In July of this year, U.S. citizen Jacob Appelbaum, a researcher and spokesman for WikiLeaks, was detained for several hours at the Newark airport after returning from a trip to Holland, and had his laptop, cellphones and other electronic products seized -- all without a search warrant, without being charged with a crime, and without even being under investigation, at least to his knowledge. He was interrogated at length about WikiLeaks, and was told by the detaining agents that he could expect to be subjected to the same treatment every time he left the country and attempted to return to the U.S. Days later, two FBI agents approached him at a computer conference he was attending in New York and asked to speak with him again. To date, he has never been charged with any crime or even told he's under investigation for anything; this was clearly a thuggish attempt by federal officials to intimidate any American citizen involved with or supporting WikiLeaks.
An MIT researcher named David House, who helped set up the Bradley Manning Support Network, has been similarly persecuted. He recently had his laptop and cell phone confiscated -- without cause -- when he returned to the US from a trip to Mexico.
Federal law grants the government the authority to subject people entering the country -- even US citizens -- to search and seizure without warrants or even probable cause. Neither Appelbaum nor House have been accused of any crime. They are not the subjects of any known federal investigation.
Which leads me to wonder just what the hell is going on in the Obama Justice Department? They appeal a federal judge's ruling that Don't Ask Don't Tell is unconstitutional, resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that effectively makes DADT the law of the land for the foreseeable future. Now we find out they've been conducting a campaign of harassment and intimidation against American citizens. Did someone forget to tell them that Alberto Gonzales isn't Attorney General any more?
Note to President Obama: Civil rights aren't optional, no matter what Bush wrote in his welcome letter. And just because your predecessor left a Gestapo infrastructure in place does not mean you have to keep it.