I AGREE THAT THIS IS “UNUSUAL AND TROUBLING:”
A federal judge has ordered Drake University to hand over information related to an antiwar meeting held in November on the campus, a move that representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild have described as extremely unusual and troubling.
In addition, four people who attended the meeting, held in the student-union building of the private institution, in Des Moines, have been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury on Tuesday.
Based on this report, it’s hard to imagine what the inquiry would be about. Do they think these guys were getting money from Saddam or Osama? Seems doubtful.
On the other hand, where were these guys when the 1994 and 1996 crime and terrorism bills were passed:
“Any organization that’s operating within the law and is a political organization, the government has no business taking records relating to their internal meetings or their officers or members,” he said. “It’s very scary to me that the federal officials in Iowa think they’re entitled to do something like this.”
I’m always astounded when people say things like this, because it indicates that they have no idea how much power the federal government has, and has had for a long time.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh notes that there is more to this story, including allegations of criminal activity, and observes:
Political meetings are not safe harbors in which people can freely organize conspiracies to commit crimes, free from any risk of investigation (including coercive investigation using subpoenas). That’s true if it’s a KKK meeting used to organize racial terrorism, an Operation Rescue meeting used to organize trespass or vandalism at an abortion clinic, or an anti-war group’s meeting used to organize criminal trespass or possible misdemeanor assault. The government doesn’t have carte blanche to just demand the entire membership list of a group (see NAACP v. Alabama); but it has considerable latitude to ask people about any possibly criminal conduct that they’ve witnessed, and even about information that may simply be relevant to determining whether such conduct took place.
Read his whole post on this subject.