FBI targets Colorado activists

Ryan Delaney (9NEWS Writer/Producer)

Created: 7/27/2004 7:22 AM MDT - Updated: 7/27/2004 8:46 AM MDT



DENVER (AP) - Several Colorado activists said they have been questioned by FBI agents who wanted to know if they had any information about plans to cause trouble at the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

Paul Bame, a 45-year-old software engineer from Fort Collins, said an agent interviewed him at his office on Friday.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado, said young activists living in two homes in Denver were questioned recently. He said he has been told that such questioning has been taking place in several states.

Monique Kelso, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Colorado, said the interviews were part of an ongoing investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes members of local law enforcement. She did not know if similar interviews were being conducted elsewhere but denied claims that the people were questioned because they participated in protests.

One of the Denver activists questioned -- 21-year-old Sarah Bardwell -- said four Denver police officers and two FBI agents came to her home last Thursday and asked her and her three housemates if anyone they knew was planning to be involved in any criminal activity at the conventions. She said they refused to answer and also refused to give their names.

Bardwell, an intern with the American Friends Service Committee, believes she was targeted because she has participated in protests, including one against the police shooting of a disabled man.

Bame said he was one of hundreds of people arrested during anti-globalization protests in Washington in 2000 and in Miami last year. He said he refused to answer similar questions from the FBI agent that visited him.

"He (The agent) said that it was not intended to be embarrassing or accusatory, but they were just checking with people who might have information," said Bame, who said he was "rattled and scared" by the encounter.