Resolution adopted by the Executive Committee of the University Education Association – Duluth (UEA-D) on January 25, 2011

The Executive Committee of the University Education Association — Duluth (UEA-D) passed the attached resolution on Jan 25.  The UEA-D is the union representing nearly 500 faculty members at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

Resolution adopted by the Executive Committee of the University Education Association – Duluth (UEA-D) on January 25, 2011

Whereas the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted raids in September 2010 at the homes and an office of antiwar and solidarity activists, including union members, in Minnesota and Illinois for their alleged material support of foreign terrorist organizations; and

Whereas the FBI in September 2010 also questioned activists in Michigan and North Carolina; and

Whereas the Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued subpoenas for nearly two dozen antiwar and solidarity activists to appear before a grand jury investigation; and

Whereas the DOJ has not made public any credible evidence of illegal activity by any of the targeted activists; and

Whereas the FBI has a history of violating the civil liberties of activist individuals and organizations, including those violations revealed just days before the September 2010 raids by the inspector general of the Department of Justice, Glenn Fine; and

Whereas the government reportedly infiltrated one of the targeted groups, the Twin Cities- based Anti-War Committee, with an undercover agent who went by the name “Karen Sullivan”; and

Whereas the government has often incited fears of subversion and terrorism to secure public support for restraints on the free exercise of civil liberties; and

Whereas the government has increasingly defined “material support” of foreign terrorist organizations in a manner that includes legitimate political and humanitarian activities; and

Whereas such a broadened definition of “material support” poses a grave threat to the legitimate political activities of all Americans;

Therefore be it resolved that the University Education Association – Duluth (UEA-D) joins numerous civil liberties, antiwar, and labor organizations in condemning the September 2010 raids on the antiwar and solidarity activists and the issuance of subpoenas to nearly two dozen of them as a dangerous assault on what appears to be lawful and legitimate political activity; and

Be it further resolved that the UEA-D calls on Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken as well as Representative Chip Cravaack to request full and transparent investigations in the Senate and the House of Representatives of the government’s surveillance of lawful political activity and the use of expansive anti-terrorism laws to criminalize political dissent.