FBI, Univ. California, Alameda Sheriffs Sued for Illegal Search of Social Justice Groups

Last August 27, law enforcement agents raided the offices of two social justice groups in Berkeley.

One group is called the Long Haul Infoshop, which describes itself as a community resource center and serves as a library and a bookstore. The other is the East Bay Prisoner Support Group, which is located in the same building.

Though the landlord refused them entry, FBI agents, the University of California police, and Alameda County sheriffs forced their way in. They broke locks on the outside doors, and even on inside doors, as well as on filing cabinets.

“They struck in the dead of day, when we were all asleep,” one Long Haul volunteer told the East Bay Express. The time was about 10:15 a.m., the paper said.

The law enforcement officers hauled away all the computers.

On January 14, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against the FBI and an FBI agent, the University of California and some of its police officers, and Alameda County, its sheriff, and a lieutenant.

The lawsuit alleges that there was a “facially invalid warrant,” that the officers improperly took material that was designed for public dissemination, including the quarterly newspaper, Slingshot, which Long Haul publishes.

It also alleges that “the raid team looked through the list of people who had borrowed books from the library, looked at book sale records . . . and took the computer used by [the East Bay Prisoner Support Group] for the publication of prisoner-rights information.”

The lawsuit further alleges that law enforcement agents “have copied or caused to be copied the data from the computers,” even though they returned them.

It alleges that the law enforcement agents “have violated and continue to violate Plaintiffs’ free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

It says they “violated and continue to violate Plaintiffs’ rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.”

It says the seizure of the computers violated the Privacy Protection Act.

And it says the raid also violated several related California statutes.

A spokesman for the University of California, Chris Harrington told a local CBS affiliate, "The search in question was conducted pursuant to a valid search warrant and was part of an ongoing criminal investigation."

An FBI spokesman refused to comment to the station.

“We filed this lawsuit to protect fundamental rights and to stop these illegal searches from happening in the future,” says Michael Risher, staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California.

For photos of the search, go to: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/27/18530389.php

For a copy of the lawsuit, go to: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/01/1