Activism Is Not a Crime: Why I Will Not Testify Before This Federal Grand Jury

Peacenik will not be watching the State of the Union speech tonight. Peacenik doesn't want to puke. There seems to be little doubt that Obama is on board with the dismantling of Social Security and the last shreds of the social safety net. But he probably won't say anything tonight for or against. It should be astounding that the Tea Party is running the agenda. But it isn't. Meanwhile Obama's justice department continues to harass anti-war activists, just like George Bush's justice department harassed activists. Obama is not defending civil liberties, the poor, the unemployed or the sick. Peacenik doesn't care how eloquent Obama might be. The message is bad. No amount of eloquence will improve it.

by Maureen Murphy

I have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago on January 25. But I will not testify, even at the risk of being put in jail for contempt of court, because I believe that our most fundamental rights as citizens are at stake.

I am one of 23 anti-war, labor and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into "material support for foreign terrorist organizations." No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers' homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?

The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the US wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end US military aid for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and US military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly US foreign policy.

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