The Activist and the Snoop.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: McCarthyism Watch - Viewpoint essay

Max Obuszewski is a seasoned, nonviolent peace activist in Maryland. But to the Maryland State Police, he is suspected of committing the "primary crime" of "terrorism--anti-war protestors" and the "secondary crime" of "terrorism--anti-govern."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

That is how the Maryland State Police designated him in internal documents that the ACLU of Maryland obtained through a lawsuit and released on July 17. The documents also show that the Maryland State Police entered his name into a database dealing with "high intensity drug activity." These documents reveal an elaborate undercover operation against peace groups and anti-capital-punishment groups.

"Agents collectively spent at least 288 hours on their surveillance over the fourteen-month period" in 2005 and 2006, the ACLU of Maryland says. Agents "monitored private organizing meetings, public forums, and events held in several churches, as well as anti-death penalty rallies outside the state's SuperMax facility and in Lawyer's Mall in Annapolis."

Groups discussed in the documents include the ACLU, the American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the International Socialist Organization, the NAACP, and United Catholic Charities. (The mention of the ACLU pertained to an upcoming meeting where the group was to "discuss the Patriot Act and how it is applied to the general population in relation to civil rights and liberties.")

The operation by the Maryland State Police included infiltrating undercover troopers into the small organizing sessions that the activists held. Sometimes only four people attended those meetings--along with the snoop.

The fake name of one of those undercover troopers was revealed in the documents as Lucy Shoup.

Obuszewski remembers her.

"She was a friendly person," he says. "You could say she was an attractive woman. She was maybe ten years out of college. We never suspected her at all. We were completely trusting in her."

Ironically, one internal document, dealing with a July 11, 2005, meeting of the Pledge of Resistance, states: "Obuszewski and others at the meeting told me that they were concerned about the surveillance they thought they were occasionally under.... Obuszewski then briefed the members about the organization of the Joint Terrorista Task Forces across the country and how part of their duties was to watch groups such as Pledge of Resistance."

Obuszewski read me three of her e-mails he says he...