FBI HARASSMENT CONTINUES

The following letter was sent in October by the Grand Jury Project of the Center for Constitutional Rights, co-sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild, 858 Broadway, Room 1116, New York, New York 10003. Contributions to further their much-needed work would be appreciated.

William Webster, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington, D.C. 20535

We, the undersigned organizations and indivi. duals, are writing to protest continuing efforts by agents of the FBI to harass and threaten individuals and disrupt the feminist and gay movements. In 1975, eight people were jailed in New Haven, Connecticut and Lexington, Kentucky because they resisted abuses of the federal grand juries by agents of the FBI. This August, harassment of many of the same groups and individuals was renewed and intensified.

The ostensible purpose of the "investigations”both in 1975 and now--is the apprehension of Katherine Power, a lesbian-feminist who was active in the student protests against the war in Southeast Asia who has been charged with a 1970 bank robbery which resulted in the death of a Boston policeman. We believe that these investigations are in fact part of a larger effort to eradicate the history of popular resistance to the war in Southeast Asia, and to fan the flames of anti-woman, anti-gay sentiment promoted by an increasingly powerful alliance of big business and conservative politicians.

The tactics used in recent months against members of feminist and gay communities are remarkably similar to those of the FBI's illegal and allegedly discontinued COINTELPRO program. In mid-August 1978, Richard Bates, Special Agent in Charge of the Boston FBI office, announced his determination to "penetrate that curtain of silence"' met by investigators in the women's and gay

communities. Since that time, members of those communities have been subjected to a wide variety of "investigative" techniques, ranging from physical assault on a 50-year-old woman to surreptitious (and illegal) searches of cars, suitcases and private papers. The FBI has obtained records of long-distance telephone calls made by many people, including the 81-year-old grandmother of a woman jailed for refusing to cooperate with the 1975 investigations. Its only purpose in doing so is further intelligence gathering and "fishing" for more names of people to interrogate.

The harassment of the feminist and gay communi. ties to date is less extreme than the COINTELPRO assaults against the Black, Hispanic and Native

Page 10/What She Wants/December, 1978

American people who have struggled long and hard against injustice. But both flow from the long-standing tendency of the FBI to act as an unlicensed thought-police agency which is more dedicated to rooting out dissent than injustice.

The "curtain of silence" Agent Bates is determined to "penetrate" is nothing more sinister than the exercise of Constitutional rights by citizens engaging in political dialogue and social activities without governmental oversight. What is truly sinister and threatening to us all is the "Big Brother" mentality which makes government officials immune from accountability for their criminal

acts, while the people are required to account to the government for their every move.

Pak

Why after eight yard, has the Katherine Power" investigation suddenly been made an FBI priority? The recent FBI tactics belie any claim that this is a "routine criminal investigation". This case would never have been given such national prominence if it had not been a political prosecution from the beginning. It certainly would not be dredged up eight years later in a climate of threats and intimidation if there were not a political motive behind it now.

1978 is the year of critical votes on the Equal Rights Amendment and attempts to rescind or prevent gay rights legislation. Big business has continued on page 14

BOYCOTT THE STONES!

New York(LNS)--The following lyrics are from the Rolling Stones latest hit "Some Girls":

White girls are pretty funny, Sometimes they drive me mad,

Black girls just want to get fucked all night, I just don't have that much jam."

For over a year now, Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), who organized in California in response to a billboard advertising the Stones' last gem "Black and Blue," have been organizing a boycott against the Stones and their record company, Atlantic Records. The billboard featured a partially clad, bound and gagged woman, with bruises, beneath the words "I'm Black and Blue over the Rolling Stones and I love it."

The fact that popular songs of the "orgasmic'' rock and roll genre are often sexist and racist is nothing new. But it seems that for some, this latest attack on Black women is the proverbial straw that

broke the camel's back. Mick Jagger and his nouveau glib racism have not gone undetected under his rock. And an intense letter writing campaign directed at the President of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun, has been initiated by a group of enraged Black women. The reason for their actions, according to a source inside the group, is "the underscored racist innuendo slung by the song's lyrics and also the subliminal indoctrination of our youth, especially our young women."

In protesting the record's message, the group said, "not having a formal name for the group is unimportant. All we want to do is show these creeps that we cannot be insulted, and that Black people will not roll over and play dead so that a few creeps at the top of some corporate ladder can rake in their ill gotten profits."

The group is adamant, making it emphatic that they would see this issue through to resolution or they would initiate a boycott of Atlantic Records also.

NOW Supports Patty Hearst

The following letter, reprinted from Off Our Backs, November 1978, was sent to Gloria Allred of the National Organization for Women, Los Angeles, by Emily Harris, recently sentenced to a long prison term for her activities with the Symbionese Liberation Army and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst:

Dear Gloria Allred:

August 14, 1978

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On Friday I was reading the San Francisco Examiner from my cell at Santa Rita. I came across an article about Los Angeles NOW's decision to support Patricia Hearst's release from prison. The main thing that sparked my anger was the fact that NOW calls itself a feminist organization, acts in the name of feminism and yet fails to acknowledge the very existence of vast numbers of women who need their support.

NOW has frequently been considered an organization that puts the interests of more privileged women .. professionals and upper middle class above those of poor and working women. Perhaps this is because the ordinary woman is not a public figure she has no access to the media. Perhaps it is because the ordinary woman does not have the same leisure time to organize and fight the objects of her oppression when they are so numerous and she barely has enough hours in the day to keep her own head above water. Or perhaps this is because the problems of most women's lives are so commonplace as to be duplicated over and over again in the homes, schools, prisons, workplaces, everywhere. The widespread oppression of all these nameless, faceless women is ignored so that NOW can focus on the plight of those women who opportunistically view women's liberation as the method for seizing their half of the corrupt patriarchal pie.

Recently publicized reports of the Los Angeles NOW's support for efforts to gain Patricia Hearst's release from prison is further proof that NOW is only

interested in the liberation of some women, not all women. I do not speak to the issue of whether Patricia Hearst should or should not be released from prison. Rather I question the priorities of a 1 group that claims to be feminist. The prisons and jails are filled with women who deserve to be released. Some are innocent and were unjustly convicted by courts, who shuffle individuals through the machinery as if they were cattle. Others are guilty only because their acts were judged by a patriarchal system that punishes, women severely for selling a commodity that is promoted and hyped throughout our culture -their sexuality instead of giving it away; as mothers who will provide for their families in any way they can; as fighters who defend themselves against physical assault; as women who aggressively seize options that will better the material conditions of their lives wben this society fails to permit meaningful work for women. Why does NOW choose to ignore these women so great in number and need? They need assistance fighting their cases in court, support in resisting dehumanizing conditions in the prisons, help in struggling to survive once they do get out of prison.

The word "feminist" is not just a name. represents a solidarity with other women based on understanding and acting against the many forms that male supremacy takes. Of the sisters I've met in the penitentiary, most would not call themselves feminists but they are far closer to the heart of feminism than many of the self-satisfied women in NOW. They stick together and fight right alongside their, sisters. NOW represents a perversion of feminism as long as it persists in turning a deaf ear to the many in order to wave banners for the privileged few. As such, NOW will never contribute to the liberation of oppressed women, but will instead become a new functionary for the oppressor.

Emily Harris