Controversy about Zero Dark Thirty drew national attention to torture and our government’s continuing failure to hold anyone accountable for US human rights abuses under the Bush administration. But what are the facts?

The Senate Intelligence Committee recently approved a 6,000 page bipartisan report documenting torture and making crystal clear that it never helped national security, but neither the public nor the press can read it because it remains classified.

Will Hollywood set the public impression of torture? Demand the real facts by adding your voice to the chorus calling on the White House to declassify and release the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture to the public.

For more background, read MLFA Legal Fellow Michael Figura’s analysis of the film, or Shahid Buttar’s explanation of why the long overdue debate matters for all Americans.

• 1/16, David Kravets, Wired, Surveillance Strategy Is ‘Privileged and Confidential,’ FBI Says
• 1/16, Brendan Sasso, The Hill, Justice Department refuses ACLU request for GPS tracking practices
• 1/16, Donna Cassata, Huffington Post, Chuck Hagel Confirmation Hearing By Senate Armed Services Committee To Be Held Jan. 31
• 1/16, Kevin Gosztola, Fire Dog Lake, Justice Department Keeps GPS Tracking Legal Opinions Secret
• 1/15, Deepa Kumar, Common Dreams, Beyond Torture: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and the Promotion of Extrajudicial Killing
• 1/15, Ron Paul, Albany Tribune, Ron Paul: Chuck Hagel And John Brennan Will Carry Out Obama’s Foreign Policy

The revelation last month that the FBI treated the Occupy movement, from the beginning, as a potential criminal or terrorist threat perhaps comes as no surprise given the FBI’s past repression of other political movements demanding change. Indeed, we reported last June that the FBI was resurrecting COINTELPRO, a program which targeted civil rights activists in the 1960’s including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to “neutralize” Occupy.

What is new, though, is the revelation that the FBI as well as other law enforcement agencies were implementing a wide-ranging policy of close collaboration with the private sector to counteract the efforts of Occupy. In so doing, the government favored the interests of corporate America over the First Amendment rights of the American people.

These findings came to light based on documents disclosed to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents show that the FBI met with the New York exchange in August 2011 to discuss Occupy protests that did not start until a month later. The FBI, in fact, had been conducting high-level surveillance of Occupy activists even though it recognized, paradoxically, that they called for peaceful protests.

Surveillance extended to Occupy activity taking place on college campuses and the FBI had informants at many local Occupy encampments. At least one representative of the State University of New York at Oswego provided intelligence to the FBI on the SUNY-OSWEGO Occupy encampment.

In one report circulated among the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and corporate America, Occupy protests taking place at West Coast ports were described as “criminal activity.” The same group issued tips to its corporate clients regarding “civil unrest,” advising them to dress conservatively, avoid political discussions, and “avoid all large gatherings related to civil issues” because “bystanders may be arrested or harmed by security forces using water cannons, tear gas or other measures to control crowds.”

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