in·tim·i·date: to make timid or fearful : FRIGHTEN; especially : to compel or deter by or as if by threats
Knock, knock:
- Will you take part in that demonstration?
- Is your neighbor planing to do so?
- What about your sister?
- Will your parents be there too?
- At that demonstration, are you planning disruptions?
- Are you planing violence?
- Do you know anybody who is doing so?
- Do you realize, that it is a crime to withhold such information?
Thank you. We´ll be back!
[The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, in a five-page internal analysis] … said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.’s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.
The opinion said: “Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible ‘chilling’ effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large-scale demonstrations.”
…
In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day.
…
“The message I took from it,” said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, “was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, ‘hey, we’re watching you.’ ”
…
The three men “were really shaken and frightened by all this,” [Ms. Lieberman (ACLU)] said, “and they got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the F.B.I.”